LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Lectures and 



3Y 



WILLIAM J. POTTER 



CTttt) a Biographical £>feetcf) 



BY 

f 

FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT, PH.D. 



BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street 

i8 9S 




COPYRIGHT 

By Geo. H. Ellis 
i8q<; 



iEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN ST. 



BOSTON 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Prefatory Note iii 

Biographical Sketch v 

List of Publications lxxix 



Religious Sentiment in the Light of Science . : 
The Twenty-third Psalm in the Nineteenth 
Century : 

I. The Eternal our Shepherd 25 

II. Green Pastures and Still Waters 46 

III. Paths of Safety 65 

IV. The Valley of Shadows 89 

V. The Overflowing Bounty 1 1 1 

VI. The Eternal Goodness and Human Destiny . 130 

The Trinity of Evolution 153 

Religion as the Affirmation of God in Human 

Nature 167 

Rational Grounds for Worship 182 

The World's Parliament of Religions . . . . 201 

Sealed Orders 232 



11 CONTENTS 

Wheat and Tares 246 

Courage of Convictions 263 

Heroisms in Daily Life 276 

The Saving Power of Truth 289 

The Voice of the Draft 306 

The Dramatic Element in the Career of Lin- 
coln 324 

The Higher Patriotism 354 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The sermons included in this volume extend over 
the greater part of Mr. Potter's ministry, — from 
1863, the date of "The Voice of the Draft," to 1893, 
when "The World's Parliament of Religions" was 
written. Nearly all of them were preached many 
times, and subject to such constant revision that the 
final form, as here printed, often differs materially 
from the original. For this reason I have not as- 
signed a date to each sermon. The series of lect- 
ures on the Twenty-third Psalm, which he delivered 
in Boston and Worcester in the fall of 1893, had 
originally been given in part as sermons in New 
Bedford in 1892. These lectures it was my father's 
expressed intention to publish. In the selection of 
the sermons I have been guided partly by the fre- 
quency with which he preached them, thus following 
somewhat his own judgment; and, also, by sug- 
gestions kindly made by his friends and parishioners 



iv PREFATORY NOTE 

in New Bedford. It is interesting to note that in 
many cases his own choice and that of his hearers 
seems to coincide. Many of these sermons, it may 
also be added, he carried with him and preached on 
his journey to the West in 1893. 

Alfred C. Potter. 

Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 10, 1894. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

BY FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT. 



To be noble in character is the supreme service 
which one man can render to his fellows. It is 
greater than any particular achievement, however 
splendid, because it is itself the achievement of 
achievements, the most useful and the most difficult 
of deeds. Single actions may easily command more 
gratitude and more praise, since they tax less the 
average man's faculties of imagination, comprehen- 
sion, and appreciation. But to be from birth to 
death one long activity devoted to the highest ends, 
disinterested and lofty and pure, is to be more than 
a doer of dramatic exploits, however brilliant, be- 
cause, while this is possible to few, that is to exem- 
plify and encourage what is possible to all. When 
asked what improvement he could suggest in the 
actual constitution of the universe, a pessimist re- 
plied : " I would make health as catching as dis- 
ease." In this reply there was more wit than wis- 
dom ; for such is the actual order of things that, in 
the spiritual sphere at least, the contagiousness of 
good is even greater than that of evil. If it were 
not so, the world would scarcely hold together. And 



vi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



that it is so has been made clear to all, with the 
powerful persuasiveness of an example as beautiful 
as it is rare, in the life of William James Potter. 

The story of this life is simple and short. Little 
is found for the recorder of it to tell. Its events 
were not such as to attract wide attention or to fur- 
nish the materials of an exciting tale. But its qual- 
ity was such as to command the reverence and win 
the love of an ever increasing circle of those whose 
judgment is the judgment of the universal con- 
science. From beginning to end it was the self- 
consecration of a pure spirit to universal aims — the 
devotion of large intellectual powers, great practical 
wisdom, a strong but never aggressive will, and shy 
but tender sympathies, to the highest welfare of all. 
To have lived such a life, in luminous contrast and 
superiority to the melancholy self-seeking so com- 
mon among mankind, is to have won the truest 
and grandest success which can crown any human 
career. 

I. 

William J. Potter was born at North Dartmouth, 
Massachusetts, youngest of the nine children of 
William and Anna (Aiken) Potter. A curious doubt 
in his own mind hung over the year of his birth. 
On February i, 1848, he wrote in his journal: 
" Once more has time brought around my birthday 

— the first day of my twentieth year." On Febru- 
ary 1, 1850, he wrote: "My twenty-first birthday 

— I am now legally a man^ a /ree-ma.n." These two 
entries fix the date of his birth as February 1, 1829. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



vii 



Yet in later times he habitually thought and wrote 
of the year of his birth as 1830. It does not appear 
on the town records, but in the records of the Friends 
at Dartmouth it is recorded as " 2 mo. 1st, 1829." 
Examination of these records, however, shows that 
they are not original, but were written at some 
subsequent time ; and, as their source is unknown, 
they cannot be considered final. The reader, there- 
fore, is left to draw his own inference from the facts. 

The original emigrant-ancestor of the Potter fam- 
ily, from whom William was descended in the sev- 
enth generation, was Nathaniel Potter, who came 
from England to Rhode Island, and died there prior 
to 1644. His son, Nathaniel Potter (1637-1704), 
who married Elizabeth Stokes, was born at Ports- 
mouth, Rhode Island, but removed to Dartmouth, 
Massachusetts. In the third generation, Samuel 
Potter (1675- 1 748) married Mary Benton and lived 
at Dartmouth. In the fourth generation, Benjamin 
Potter, of Dartmouth, married Ruth Brownell in 
1736. In the fifth generation, William Halladay 
Potter, of Dartmouth, who married Patience Thurs- 
ton, was born in 1748 and died in 18 14. In the 
sixth generation, William Potter (1 784-1 870) mar- 
ried Anna Aiken in 1812; and their ninth child, 
William James, was born, as just shown, on Feb- 
ruary 1, 1829. 

Other lineal ancestors were Adam Mott, of Cam- 
bridge, England, whose son, Adam Mott, born in 
England, came over to Newport in 1634, and was a 
prominent member of the society of Friends ; John 
Williams, who came from England to Scituate in 



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1632 ; Captain Michael Pierce, who was born in 
England, lived at Hingham and Scituate, and was 
killed by the Indians in King Philip's War, 1676; 
Thomas Holbrook, of England, who lived succes- 
sively at Weymouth, Dorchester, and Medfield, and 
died in 1677 ; Matthew Gannett, who was born in 
England in 161 8, settled at Hingham, was at Scitu- 
ate in 165 1, and died in 1695; Anthony Dodson, 
who was at Scituate in 1650. All these were an- 
cestors on the father's side, while among those 
on the mother's side are found the names of Aiken, 
Howland, Perry, and Hathaway. It appears, there- 
fore, that William J. Potter came of good old New 
England stock, including original Quakers, and at 
least one Indian-fighter who laid down his life in 
defence of the colony. But no clergyman or min- 
ister has been thus far discovered among his 
ancestors. 

II. 

The materials from which this sketch of Mr. Pot- 
ter's life is drawn are extremely meagre. Four man- 
uscript journals covering portions of the period from 
1847 to 1858, a few miscellaneous memoranda of his 
own, a few notes by his son, and a few pamphlets 
and newspaper cuttings, — these are the only data 
which have been supplied to me. Out of these 
scanty materials it is impossible to construct a con- 
nected story, or even to outline the course of devel- 
opment which, beginning with the Quaker boy on 
an old New England farm, ended in one of the 
wisest and best of men and one of the foremost re- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



ix 



ligious reformers of our generation. Outwardly so 
peaceful and noiseless, inwardly so bold in thought 
and so rich in thought's results, his spiritual life 
flowed on like a river amidst the beautiful scenery 
of an old cultivated plain, yet brought down among 
the haunts of men an illimitable wealth of golden 
grains from the mountain fastnesses of his own be- 
ing. All who knew him must rejoice that he lived 
*long enough to concentrate this wealth in so beauti- 
ful a form as that of the series of lectures in Boston 
in which his life as religious teacher came to a mem- 
orable culmination. And multitudes who knew him 
not will now discover that, when he died, they had 
been " entertaining an angel unawares." 

The brief story of his outward career is easily 
told. 

Born and brought up on his father's farm, Potter 
was educated in the district schools of Dartmouth 
and the Friends' school at Providence, Rhode Island. 
His home life was happy, and during his vacations 
he cheerfully helped his father in doing the farm 
work. In fact, it was his father's strong desire to 
see him make farming his life-work and carry on the 
old place as his ancestors had done, But William 
felt the stirrings of higher aspirations and capacities 
than could be satisfied by agriculture as a permanent 
occupation, and felt constrained to take up teaching 
as opening a field for their better development. In 
the end his father reluctantly consented that he 
should go to the Normal School at Bridgewater and 
fit himself for the life of a teacher. This school he 
entered, December 2, 1847, an ^ during his second 



X 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



term got some practical experience by instructing 
the entering class. On November 25, 1848, he 
began to teach a school at Kingston, and remained 
there till March 25, 1849 ; but he did not feel satis- 
fied with his own success. While in Kingston, ear- 
lier desires to go to college were rekindled. May 1, 
however, finds him beginning a new school at Sand- 
wich, with fifty scholars between the ages of twelve 
and seventeen. His stay was short ; the school 
committee were not satisfied with the discipline 
maintained, and he returned home, May 26, to fit 
himself for college without a teacher. This difficult 
labor he pursued with more or less success till Octo- 
ber 5, when he received a letter from Henry B. 
Wheelwright, preceptor of the Bristol Academy in 
Taunton, offering him a situation there. The salary 
was small, but he was to have Mr. Wheelwright's 
assistance in fitting for college. The offer was ac- 
cepted, and he remained teaching at Taunton till 
May 15, 1850, when he returned home to resume his 
studies more uninterruptedly in preparing for the col- 
lege examination. After some quite heroic work, he 
passed the examination successfully, and was ad- 
mitted as a member of the freshman class at Har- 
vard College, July 16, without conditions. The 
result was very creditable to him under his difficult 
circumstances. In August he joined his class in 
Cambridge. 

Under date of September 19, 1850, only about 
three weeks after he began his college work, I find 
his first mention of the ministry, as follows : — 

" For several months my mind has been quite un- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xi 



settled again as to what is to be the business of my 
life, owing partly to my disappointment in teaching, 
and partly to a kind of mental attraction which I 
have for some time experienced towards the minis- 
try. Of course, I feel my entire unfitness, both in 
talents and in depth of religious character, for such 
a work; yet I cannot blind myself to the very obvi- 
ous inclining of my mind towards it. What is the 
motive of the movement is not so easily perceived. 
I have not yet been able to fully analyze this ten- 
dency of my feelings, so as to discover whence it 
springs, how composed, and how much attention 
it is worthy to receive. About all I can say is 
that it exists, and has existed for nearly a year, 
but that previously the bias of my mind was rather 
against the ministry as a profession for myself. Is 
it the voice of duty or of inclination ? Is it the 
natural, legitimate product of my own soul, to be 
heeded and observed, or is it a mere fluttering of 
fancy sent to try my judgment, and which is to be 
expelled as a hostile intruder ? These questions, 
though important, I cannot yet answer. When I 
look forward to such a work, I see numerous ob- 
structions rising up in the way of my ever becoming 
engaged in it, and some of them apparently insur- 
mountable ; yet the feeling haunts me still, and rea- 
son sets to work with imagination to devise means 
for clearing the path of all hindrances. Besides de- 
ficiency of talents and religious character, which 
alone seems sufficient to debar me from a profession 
now suffering from this very cause, there are other 
hindrances, arising out of the circumstances of my 



Xll 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



past life and the nature of my present sentiments, 
peculiar to myself. I have not yet outlived the in- 
fluence of the Quaker element in my education. My 
mind still has a kind of repugnance to learning to be 
a minister, though my reason finds nothing objection- 
able in it. Again, I can scarcely reconcile the idea of 
my becoming a clergyman with my present views of 
theology, churches, religious rites, &c. And what 
society or sect must I go with, believing with none ? 
What creed should I preach, possessing none ? I 
have in my mind, it is true, an ideal minister differ- 
ent from any real one whom it was ever my lot to 
know. But have I any reason to hope I could ap- 
proach more nearly my ideal of a minister than I 
have approached my ideal of a teacher ? Thus the 
matter comes to my mind, presenting arguments pro 
and con, and receiving replies ; but as yet there is 
no decision. In the meantime let me do present 
duty, and the future in due season will develop it- 
self. More light will be afforded, as I use correctly 
present supplies." 

During his freshman vacation, from December i, 
1850, to February 28, 185 1, Potter kept school in 
Medfield, succeeding somewhat better than formerly 
in meeting the demands of his own exacting ideal. 
Probably he taught school more or less in the winter 
vacations of his later college years ; but no journal 
has been found which gives a record of his college 
life beyond the end of his sophomore year. He was 
appointed " orator " by " our class society " (Insti- 
tute of 1770), and gave his oration to universal 
satisfaction at the close of that year. He became a 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xiii 



member of the Alpha Delta Phi and the Phi Beta 
Kappa societies, and was graduated in the class of 
1854. 

III. 

On June 1, not long before his graduation, Potter 
received the appointment of " Hopkins classical 
teacher " in the Cambridge High School, being the 
first to hold this position, and continued to dis- 
charge its duties till 1856, when he resigned it. 
During the year 1856-1857, he was a student in the 
Harvard Divinity School, but was never graduated 
there. 

On August 9, 1857, he started from New York for 
Europe in the " Louis Napoleon," a German sailing- 
vessel, together with Gerald Fitzgerald (Divinity 
School, 1859) an d Henry W. Brown (Harvard Col- 
lege, 1852, and Divinity School, 1857). Arriving at 
Hamburg on September 14, he immediately pro- 
ceeded to Berlin, and on the 19th was matriculated 
as a student of philosophy at the University, engag- 
ing lessons in German at the same time from a 
private teacher. When the term began, October 22, 
he listened to lectures by Haupt on the Satires of 
Horace and Trendelenburg on the history of philos- 
ophy ; but he writes, " I scarcely understood a dozen 
words of both of them." Later in November, he 
heard lectures by Wuttke on the history of Christian 
dogma and on Hegel's philosophy and its relation 
to Christianity — by Michelet on the philosophy of 
modern history since 1775, — by Vatke on some meta- 
physical questions, — and by Althaus on Goethe's 



xiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



" Faust ; " and now, he writes, " I begin to discover 
a little progress in understanding the lectures." He 
remained at Berlin, studying, visiting the art-gal- 
leries, and observing German life, till March I, 1858, 
when he went to Dresden. Here he stayed about a 
month, devoting much of his time to the picture gal- 
leries ; then, passing rapidly through Leipzig, Bam- 
berg, Nuremberg, Munich, Ulm, and Stuttgart, he re- 
paired to Tubingen, April 13, where he remained to 
study, rooming with Mr. Brown. Here he heard 
Baur on an uninteresting subject, and Fichte on 
the history of modern philosophy (" the students 
here call him ' der wortreiche Sohn des geistreichen 
Vaters ' ") ; but the lecture courses were not suffi- 
ciently attractive to induce him to matriculate. On 
May 10, he writes : " Concluded to give up attend- 
ing lectures and devote myself to study in my room. 
Still read Baur and his school of theology with great 
pleasure." On July 1 : " To-day we are packing for 
Switzerland. Our Tubingen race is run. Though 
we make it a short term, I feel that I have got much 
from it — much from my reading. I now see what 
Baur and his school have done, and am better able 
to give a scientific reason for my disbelief in the old- 
school theology than I was before." And on July 
2: "Left Tubingen at 12 o'clock in company with 
Brown and Brooks for Switzerland, by way of Baden 
and Freiburg." 

The itinerary of the Swiss-Italian journey, which 
occupied about six weeks, can be made out to have 
been as follows: — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



XV 



July 2. Tubingen. Wildbad. 

3. Baden-Baden. 

5. Freiburg. 

6. Schaffhausen. 

7. Dachsen and the Rhine Falls. 

8. Zurich. 

9. Horgen, Zug, Arth, Mt. Rigi. 

10. Waggis, Kiissnacht, Lucerne. 

11. Fluelen, Amstag, Gothard Pass, Hos- 
penthal. 

12. Furka Pass, Grimsel. 

13. Guttanen, Reichenbach. 

14. Greater Scheideck, Faulhorn. 

15. Grindelwald. 

16. Wengern Alp, Lauterbrunnen, Inter- 

laken. 

17. Lake Brienz, Giessbach Falls. 

18. Neuhaus, Thun, Berne. 

19. Freiburg. 

20. Vevay, Chillon. 

21. Geneva. 
23. Chamonix. 

25. Martigny, via Tete Noire. 

26. St. Bernard Pass. 

27. Aosta, Chatillon. 

28. St. Theodule Pass, Breuil. 

29. Gbrner Grat. 

30. Zermatt, Vispnach. 

31. Simplon Pass. 
August 1. Isella, Domo d' Ossola. 

" 2. Pallanza, Lake Maggiore. 

" 3. Magadino, Luvino, Lugano. 



XVI 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


August 4. 


Carpolago, Milan. 


6. 


Sondrio. 




Bormio 


" 8. 


Stelvio Pass, Mais. 


" Q. 


Finstermiing Pass, Landeck. 


" IO. 


Innsbruck. 


" II. 


Kufstein, Rosenheim. 


" 12. 


Stock, Traunstein, Reichenhall. 


" 13. 


Berchtesgaden. 


" 14. 


Hallein, Salzburg. 


" is- 


Munich. 



From Munich, where he stayed a few days, Potter 
went to Heidelberg on August 22, made a five-days 
excursion to Mannheim, Mainz, Cologne, and Cob- 
lenz, and returned to Heidelberg, where he remained 
studying until October 4. Then he started for Italy 
once more, by way of Frankfort, Carlsruhe, Strass- 
burg, Basle, Zurich, Rapperschwyl, St. Gall, Ragatz, 
Coire, and the Spliigen Pass. In Italy he went to 
Chiavenna, Colico, Bergamo, Brescia, and Venice, 
where he stayed three days, — to Padua, Ferrara, 
Bologna, and Florence. The last entry in his 
journal is that of October 22, and ends abruptly, in 
the midst of a description of Florence by moonlight. 

IV. 

During the winter of 1858-1859, after his return 
from Europe, Potter remained in Cambridge as a 
candidate for the ministry. He preached at New 
Bedford several times in July, 1859, and finally re- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



XVII 



ceived an invitation from the wealthy Unitarian 
society there to become its minister. His ordina- 
tion took place on December 28, 1859, tne ordination 
sermon being preached by Rev. Dr. William H. 
Furness ; and his first sermon as pastor, printed in 
the volume which he published in 1885 with the 
title, " Twenty-five Sermons of Twenty-five Years," 
was delivered on January 1, i860. 

In the spring of that year, he began keeping house 
with his sister, Mrs. Ruth Almy, and her husband. 
In July, 1 861, he preached at Washington on the day 
of the first battle of Bull Run ; and he visited the 
camps in the vicinity during the terrible confusion 
that ensued. On July 23, 1863, he was drafted; 
and on the following Sunday, July 26, he delivered 
a sermon on " The Voice of the Draft," declaring his 
resolution not to disobey the call of his country in 
her hour of need. He tendered his resignation as 
minister of the Unitarian society, which, however, 
refused to accept it, granting him leave of absence 
for a year and giving him five hundred dollars. In 
the latter part of August, he went to Washington at 
the special request of Secretary Stanton, who had 
heard of his patriotic course, and who had written 
the following letter to Hon. John H. Clifford of New 
Bedford : 

War Department 
Washington City, Aug. 9, 1863. 

My dear Sir: 

I am infinitely obliged to you for the sermon 
delivered by Mr. Potter. Such outpouring of a noble 
spirit cannot fail to do good. I have directed its 



xviii 



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publication in the Army and Navy Gazette as the 
best exposition of the Enrolling Law that has 
appeared. I think he is right in the belief that the 
time has come for him to have a nearer view of the 
great movement of which the war is a development. 
For this reason I wish to see him. It cannot be 
otherwise than that he is drafted for no ordinary 
service — a service that needs not, nor can be ex- 
cused by a surgeon's certificate. Please tell him I 
wish to see him, and give him my thanks for what 
he has already done. . . . 

Yours truly, 

Edwin M. Stanton. 

The result of his interview with the great war 
minister was that, after preaching his farewell ser- 
mon on September 6, Potter was assigned the duty 
of "visiting and inspecting all the United States 
hospitals in and near Washington and Alexandria." 
This duty he faithfully discharged, making elaborate 
notes of the condition and needs of all the hospitals 
under his care. 

Returning to New Bedford in November, on a 
furlough, he preached again to his society, and, on 
November 26, was married to Elizabeth Claghorn 
Babcock, daughter of Spooner and Lydia Delano 
Babcock of New Bedford. They proceeded at once 
to Washington, and in January, 1864, began to keep 
house in a little one-story hut in the Convalescent 
Camp, Alexandria, where he had been appointed 
chaplain. In May, he resigned his position as chap- 
lain, and returned home with his wife. Leaving her 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xix 



there, he went back to the front, and served on the 
Sanitary Commission. He remained on duty in 
hospital during the campaigns near Fredericksburg, 
and was often under fire. In August, 1864, he re- 
turned home, his leave of absence having expired, 
and resumed his duties as minister of the Unitarian 
Society. 

From 1866 to the end of his life, Potter was pro- 
foundly interested in the Free Religious Associa- 
tion, and his work in its behalf constitutes, in fact, 
his chief claim to public remembrance and gratitude 
beyond the limits of his society and the city of his 
adoption. He was Secretary of the Association 
from its birth in 1867 until 1882, and President of 
it from 1882 to 1893 ; he was familiar with its inside 
and outside history as no man could possibly be who 
had not given to it, as he had done, the faithful con- 
tinuous service of twenty-six years ; and it is a cause 
of deep regret that he never took up, as I repeatedly 
urged him to do, the task of compiling an accurate 
and full history of the Association from the original 
records, interpreted and enriched by his own per- 
sonal knowledge. Such a history would have been 
of priceless value hereafter ; and now it can never 
be written. He shrank from the task, yet was at- 
tracted by it, too ; and it is more than probable that 
he would have undertaken it, if his life had been 
spared ten years longer. What further I may have 
to say on this subject of the Free Religious Associa- 
tion and of Potter's connection with it must come 
later. 

In the winter of 1872- 1873, his eyes gave out, and 



XX 



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his general health became impaired ; this obliged 
him to spend the months of March and April in the 
milder climate of Florida, where he recovered his 
strength. 

In the spring of 1875, he spent a few weeks in 
Washington on account of his wife's health — a sad 
forewarning of the greatest sorrow of his life ; and 
again, in the winters of 1875-1876 and i8y6-i8yy f 
the same reason took them both South once more, 
first to Columbia, South Carolina, and afterwards to 
Kittrell, North Carolina. In June, 1877, still for the 
same melancholy reason, the whole family removed 
to Grantville, Massachusetts, now Wellesley Hills, 
which obliged Potter to travel to New Bedford every 
week in order to discharge the preacher's duty. His 
gentle and lovely wife died on December 7, 1879, 
leaving her husband alone in the care of their two 
young children. He returned with them from 
Grantville to New Bedford in May, 1880, but not to 
the old home. Over this sacred grief let the veil be 
reverently drawn. Enough to say that no father 
ever fulfilled his duty more conscientiously or more 
tenderly or more wisely than did this bereaved and 
great-souled man. 

When "The Index" was founded in Toledo, Ohio, 
and its first issue appeared on January 1, 1870, Pot- 
ter assumed charge of a special page devoted to the 
Free Religious Association, and edited it indepen- 
dently, as Secretary, during the first year of that 
weekly journal. At the end of the year, this special 
page was given up, but the leading officers of the 
Association, together with other invited writers, be- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxi 



came henceforth "editorial contributors." This ar- 
rangement continued till July i, 1880, when the 
original editor of " The Index" resigned; and the 
Index Association, of which Potter was the Presi- 
dent, gave to the Free Religious Association the 
entire property and goodwill of " The Index," valued 
at over five thousand dollars, on condition of contin- 
uing to publish the journal in the cause of "Free 
Religion." Proprietorship of "The Index" was now 
vested in trustees selected by the Free Religious 
Association, and Potter became editor, with an as- 
sistant, of "The Free Religious Index" — a name 
subsequently changed back to its original form. 
This function he continued to discharge, going to 
Boston weekly to supervise the " making-up " of the 
paper, till the end of the year 1886. At that time 
" The Index " was given up altogether ; and the Free 
Religious Association, ceasing to have a weekly ex- 
ponent of its ideas, lost greatly in influence and 
power. During the entire seventeen years of its 
existence, "The Index" enjoyed the unwearied sup- 
port and cooperation of Potter's mind and heart ; 
and in its columns are still to be found some of the 
ripest and richest products of his brain. 

The twenty-fifth anniversary of his settlement as 
minister of the Unitarian Society was celebrated at 
New Bedford on December 28, 1884. His own an- 
niversary sermon, together with the speeches of 
Thomas M. Stetson, Esq., and the Hon. William W. 
Crapo, may be found in the volume already men- 
tioned, "Twenty-five Sermons of Twenty-five Years," 
which was published in compliance with the request 



N 



xxii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



of " many friends " who desired a permanent memo- 
rial of their beloved pastor and preacher. 

In the spring of 1887, Potter's health was again 
much broken by sleeplessness and impaired nervous 
energy, but was restored for the time by a month's 
trip to the South. In 1889, from January to June, 
he was compelled to take another and longer rest in 
Florida and South Carolina. So much discouraged 
did he feel at last, in consequence of these repeated 
failures of health, that he tendered his resignation in 
April of this year ; but his society, which was de- 
votedly attached to him, refused to accept it, and 
insisted on lightening his labors by giving him a col- 
league. A young graduate of the Harvard Divinity 
School in whom he had become deeply interested, 
Mr. Paul Revere Frothingham, was invited to be- 
come his associate pastor, and, in accordance with 
Potter's own earnest wishes, was ordained as such 
on October 9, 1889. 

But the long and faithful service was drawing to 
a close. In January, 1890, Potter was once more 
obliged to seek rest and recovery at the South ; and, 
feeling that his life-work in New Bedford had been 
fully accomplished, he sent in his final resigna- 
tion on October 2, 1892. To all entreaties to with- 
draw it, he remained inflexible, and his decision 
was communicated to the society in the following 
letter : — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxiii 



New Bedford, Sept. 27, 1892. 

To the Members of the First Congregational Society 
in New Bedford: 

My Dear Friends, — The time has come when I 
am constrained by a sense of duty to announce to 
you my desire and purpose to withdraw from the 
pastoral office which, by the kindness of this Soci- 
ety, I have held nearly thirty-three years. 

I am moved to this action by no sudden impulse, 
nor is there need to assure you that it arises from no 
break in the harmony of our parochial relations. 

For a considerable time I have contemplated such 
a step, — not with the view of retiring from the 
ministry, but that I may be free, after possibly a 
brief interval of rest, for a somewhat different kind 
of professional labor ; or, at least, for carrying else- 
where the religious message which these years have 
made so familiar to you. During the period of 
active work" which remains to me, and which I trust 
is not to be brief, I am convinced that I can use my 
resources to better advantage in a different field. 

It is to be, I am aware, no easy nor pleasant inci- 
dent thus to sever the various ties which bind us 
together — ties professional and personal, which, for 
many of you as for me, have been forming through 
the lapse of a generation. In bonds of sorrow and 
of joy, as well as by the interests of united religious 
endeavor, our lives have been knit into each other. 

Nowhere else can I expect again to establish the 
home-feeling which has grown up for me among you, 
and in this place so near the spot of my birth and 



xx iv 



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the homes of my ancestors and kindred, and I shall 
hail it as a kind fortune if I shall be permitted, after 
my working days are finished, to return hither to 
spend in this community the remnant of my life. 
But that time is not yet ; and meanwhile the voice 
of duty rather than sentiment is to be heeded. Be- 
lieving that in the years immediately to come I can 
labor more advantageously elsewhere, I ask that you 
will grant me a friendly release from our compact. 

By the terms of my settlement, notice of a desire 
on either side to terminate the relation was to be 
given six months previous to the act of dissolution. 

The Society, however, would confer on me a 
special favor, if it should so far waive this condition 
as to allow my resignation to take effect on the 
28th of next December, which will be the anni- 
versary of my ordination and will bring my ministry 
to the full period of thirty-three years. 

I feel the more free to request this concession, 
inasmuch as the junior pastor, who in his three 
years of service has proved himself amply and ac- 
ceptably equipped for all pastoral duties, will then 
have returned from his absence in Europe, and will 
be on the spot to take up the work of the parish, 
with no break in its interests. I am happy in the 
thought that I can thus leave the Society well organ- 
ized in its various departments, and advancing under 
earnest and vigorous leadership to improve new 
opportunities. 

In the future as in the past, the harmony, prog- 
ress, and welfare of this Society will ever be dear to 
my heart. By its generous liberality and aid, I have 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



XXV 



been enabled to do what must now stand as the 
main work of my life. Both parochially and individ- 
ually, beloved friends, my best wishes will remain 
with you and for you ; and all your successes in the 
things that make for the highest interests of human 
existence will find grateful place among my own 
purest satisfactions. 

With sincere and affectionate regard, 

Your friend and pastor, 

Wm. J. Potter. 

Reluctantly acquiescing at last in Potter's own 
view of the matter, the Society accepted his resigna- 
tion with universal sorrow on October 2, in the fol- 
lowing resolutions : — 

"Resolved, That the Senior Pastor shall on the 
28th of December next be liberated from all duties 
to us in New Bedford, to the end that he may be 
enabled to preach or publish elsewhere the views so 
faithfully and well preached in our pulpit. He has 
been a moral power and intellectual centre in our 
city. 

" His preaching has profoundly satisfied the lofti- 
est spiritual and religious needs of ourselves and the 
many visitors to our services. 

"While our love for him and our estimate of his 
value to us would never permit us to voluntarily 
allow his departure, yet, as it is solemnly required by 
him, we can still rejoice that others in other churches 
and in distant communions may share in the high 
expositions hitherto confined so much to us. 

" Though we are but pupils of his, yet the views 



xxvi 



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upheld here are widely deemed to represent the 
status of this church, and it is fitting that in some 
sense we have our missionary. We extend to him our 
earnest wishes that his efforts may be blessed with 
success, and, to assist him therein, we request that 
he will accept from us the sum of $2,000 annually 
for five years to assist him in his proposed work. 

" We shall be glad to hear his reports of the 
progress of the Liberal Faith, wherever he may be. 
We sincerely hope that the kindness of the future 
may enable us to hear his voice often, and in ac- 
cordance with his request now accept his tendered 
resignation, to take effect as above." 

The story of this beautiful and unique termination 
of so long a pastorate will be brought to a full and fit 
close by the following responsive letter : — 

New Bedford, Dec. 10, 1892. 
To the First Congregational Society in New Bedford: 

Dear Friends, — Most grateful acknowledgment 
is due to you for the very kind terms in which you 
have accepted my resignation of the pastoral office, 
and for your generous proposal to share the responsi- 
bility for the religious work which I have in mind 
to do elsewhere. 

It is especially gratifying to me thus to have your 
moral support in the work, while the material aid 
you ask me to accept will relieve me from certain 
anxieties and make me much freer in the work than 
I could be without it. 

I am pleased, therefore, to stand in this relation to 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxvii 



you, as your missionary preacher in other parts of 
our land. 

Since, however, unforeseen circumstances may 
arise which may make it desirable to modify or ter- 
minate the relation before the five years named in 
your vote shall expire, I assent, with the understand- 
ing that this arrangement shall not be binding beyond 
the time when either party to it may desire its dis- 
solution. 

Let me also take this opportunity to return my 
deeply felt thanks for the numerous individual ex- 
pressions which have come to me of your friendly 
regard and affection. Though I am to hold toward 
you but little longer the pastoral relation, it will be 
to me a constant happiness to keep your religious 
sympathy, and to deserve, if I may, your continued 
friendship and good will. 

Most sincerely yours, 

Wm. J. Potter. 

On Christmas Day, 1892, Potter preached his 
farewell sermon on " Thirty-three Years: their End 
a Beginning." Henceforth he was a free missionary 
of free religion. Leaving Boston about a fortnight 
later, he preached in Chicago on January 15, 1893, 
and soon afterwards proceeded to California, where 
he spent about five months, preaching (mostly in Uni- 
tarian pulpits) in Pasadena, San Diego, Los Angeles, 
Fresno, and San Francisco. In June he went to 
Colorado, where he spent the summer in resting 
from the fatigues of the winter and spring. Towards 
the last of August, he returned to Chicago, to attend 



XXVlll 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



the World's Parliament of Religions at the Columbian 
Exposition, and to participate in the twenty-sixth 
annual meeting of the Free Religious Association, 
held in connection with the Parliament on Septem- 
ber 20. The Parliament itself was the concrete 
historical realization of a dream of his own, declared 
in his own words twenty-one years before at the 
annual meeting of the Free Religious Association 
in 1872, — words which constitute one of the most 
remarkable prophecies ever uttered. 

" Some of us here," wrote Potter, in the report of 
the executive committee on that occasion, "may 
live to see the day when there shall be a World's 
Convention, in London, or perhaps in Boston, or San 
Francisco, of representatives from all the great 
religions of the globe, — coming together in a spirit 
of mutual respect, confidence, and amity, for com- 
mon conference on what may be for the best good of 
all ; not to make a common creed by patching arti- 
cles together from their respective faiths in which 
they might find themselves in agreement, but, eman- 
cipated from bondage to creed and sect, to join 
hands in a common effort to help mankind to higher 
truth and nobler living. It may be that the work of 
this Association will culminate in such a World's 
Convention — a peace convention of the religions. 
For that grasp of hands across the dividing line of 
opinion, with mutual respect for the natural rights of 
opinion, in a common effort to get truth and to do 
good, is the Free Religious Association." 

Such a vision as this, which at the time was re- 
garded as the outburst of an exaggerated and extra v- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Xxix 

agant enthusiasm, was in truth a flash of religious 
genius. Seldom, if ever, has a prognostication of 
the future been so solidly grounded in the nature of 
things, or a piercing glance into the secret of a far- 
off evolution been so amply warranted and verified 
by the subsequent fact. Was there not a rare poetic 
beauty and fitness in the conjunction of circum- 
stances that permitted the prophet to behold the 
fulfilment of his own prophecy, — nay, more, to be 
a part of it, and to drink the delight of helping to 
usher in the new epoch of Universal Religion which 
he had so glowingly foretold and labored for so long ? 
There is cause for gratitude to all who loved him 
that he should have been allowed to taste this su- 
preme satisfaction before he died. 

For the end was near. He left Chicago for New 
Bedford, September 24, and began in Horticultural 
Hall, Boston, October 22, that noble course of Sun- 
day lectures which was the summing up of all he had 
won of wisdom in his beautiful life and the grand 
consummation of his life-work. This course he com- 
pleted in Boston on December 10, occupying a room 
meanwhile at "The Otis," 41 Mount Vernon Street 
— a room that it pleased him at the time to know 
was situated directly over the room in which his 
old friend the writer was born. He repeated these 
lectures one by one in Worcester between November 
12 and December 17, when, after preaching in the 
forenoon for the last time to his beloved society in 
New Bedford, he went in the afternoon from New 
Bedford to Worcester, and delivered there once 
more the closing lecture of his Horticultural Hall 



XXX 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



course in the evening. That splendid discourse was 
his swan-song, his last word in public, the fit and 
beautiful ending of his faithful ministry. 

On Thursday, December 21, he had the crowning 
happiness of performing the marriage service for his 
only son. His cup was full. His work was done. 
Late on that evening, while passing through the 
streets of Boston alone, the releasing summons came 
suddenly and without warning. Apparently he grew 
dizzy, and sat down to rest himself on the doorstep 
of No. 6 Province Court. Here he was found uncon- 
scious by passersby. Notice was given to the police, 
who carefully removed him to the station, where, 
without recovering his consciousness, he died about 
midnight. Identified by some papers in his pocket, 
he was at last delivered to his friends, borne to New 
Bedford, and buried, on December 26, from the 
noble old stone church which he had always loved 
and to which he had devoted the best years of his 
life. A great audience, comprising all the best ele- 
ments of the community and filling the large audito- 
rium, assembled in awed silence to express the 
universal sorrow for his death and the universal 
reverence for his rare personal worth — the univer- 
sal appreciation of the power of his thought as a 
preacher, the nobility of his character as a man, the 
beneficence of his influence as a citizen, and the 
incalculable good which had come to the city of his 
adoption through the radiance of his life and the 
strength, beauty, and saintliness of his soul. Such 
feelings and thoughts were in the minds of all, and 
were uttered by his two old friends who had been 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxxi 



summoned to speak the last words of love, grief, and 
hope over his lifeless form. This was laid in the 
earth beside that of the gentle and devoted wife who 
had left him fourteen years before, and whose pre- 
mature departure had been the one great sorrow of 
his life. Thus William James Potter was gathered 
to his fathers, honored and loved by all. 

V. 

There is little in this record of an outwardly un- 
eventful life to dazzle the imagination, challenge the 
applause, or even attract the eyes of the general 
public. But it is such lives that make the world 
worth living in. Not so much by what he did, or 
even by what he said, as by what he was, Potter has 
left an indelible impress upon the community that 
knew him best. He was not a great master or man- 
ager of affairs, but commanded universal respect for 
the soundness of his judgment and the weight of his 
influence. He was not a great thinker or originator 
of ideas, but knew how to make the best ideas of his 
age tell for the purification of character and of 
society. There was a singular moderation in his 
mental action which, while it hindered him from 
becoming a discoverer or beating out new paths of 
thought, qualified him admirably for the most im- 
portant function of a free preacher in a free com- 
munity — persuasion. Bold and sincere in a rare 
degree, he knew how to carry his people with him 
and keep their sympathies, yet without stooping to 
conciliate their prejudices or to withhold any part of 



XXX11 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



the message he felt bound to deliver. Preeminently 
a reformer and innovator in religion, the calmness of 
his temperament, no less than the tenderness of his 
spirit, preserved him from arousing opposition by 
pressing the logic of reform beyond the willingness 
or ability of his hearers to follow it. Probably he 
owed this balance of courage and caution, this tem- 
pering of the demands of logic by the claims of 
sympathy, to his Quaker ancestry and early environ- 
ment. But, whatever its origin, his temperamental 
moderation both in action and in thought saved him 
from that grim remorselessness in pursuing a principle 
to its last results which makes at once the strength 
of the speculative pioneer and the weakness of the 
practical reformer. He always stopped a little short 
of the extreme logic of the case. There was nothing 
in this that savored of concession or compromise; it 
was a characteristic rooted deeply in the essential 
quality of Potter's mind, and lay at the bottom of his 
success as a preacher; it made him dear to those 
whom he so gently led to higher levels of religious 
thought, because, although they felt that he did not 
go too far or get out of their reach, they could also 
feel that he was uncompromisingly true both to him- 
self and to them. The preacher's success is founded 
upon the people's belief in his sincerity, but no less 
upon their sympathy with the substance of what he 
preaches ; and the very slowness with which Potter's 
intellect, logical as it was, moved to the remoter and 
subtler implications of his own thought, was a limita- 
tion which proved to be a positive power in his 
preaching and gave him a stronger hold upon his 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXxiii 

people's hearts. No audience on earth will travel 
very far on the track of an idea or a principle; for 
nothing is feebler in the average man, at the present 
stage of human development, than the sense of 
rational continuity or logical necessity. Whoever 
taxes this capacity too severely from the pulpit will 
find few to follow him ; he will defeat his own object. 
Potter made no such failure. The strength of his 
preaching was its large general intelligence, its 
sobriety of speech, its elevation of tone, its profound 
religiousness of spirit. His eloquence was that of a 
whole man appealing to the whole humanity of his 
hearers, and making them conscious of a wider 
horizon, a purer atmosphere, a less beclouded sky ; 
his strongest appeal of all was the simple fact of 
his own presence and his own spirit, as one with 
the Eternal whom he interpreted. Strong, self-con- 
tained, and self-consecrated to the best, he delivered 
his message in all simplicity and self-forgetfulness ; 
and the loyal adhesion of the New Bedford society to 
their minister for a whole generation, in these days 
of short pastorates, was the highest tribute of appre- 
ciation and gratitude which they could possibly have 
paid to this incorruptible servant of whatever truth 
he saw. 

VI. 

But Potter was more than a preacher — he was a 
citizen. He took the utmost interest in the welfare 
of the city and of the general community, and ex- 
tended his influence for good far beyond the narrow 
limits of his parish. Bold and free of speech as he 



XXXI V 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



was, the benignity of his nature and his complete 
freedom from the spirit of antagonism — he was a 
true man of peace, like his ancestors — rendered him 
a favorite with the other ministers of the place, and 
it was said at the time that every minister in New 
Bedford attended his funeral. Among the topics of 
his sermons came often those most closely connected 
with local affairs, the business interests of the city, 
political issues, not only during the war, but to the 
end of his life. He was alive to everything that 
concerned the higher interests of the people, and 
took part in all promising reforms, if not with very 
active participation, at least with words of open and 
hearty sympathy. Temperance, woman suffrage, 
civil service reform, the rights and wrongs of the 
freedmen and the Indians and the Chinese and the 
oppressed of every name, the cause of education 
and the young — all these things and more of the 
same kind enlisted his earnest efforts for the better- 
ment of the world. Particularly deserving of men- 
tion in this connection is the active part he took in 
the establishment of the Swain Free School, one of 
the most important institutions of New Bedford. I 
owe to the kindness of Mr. Andrew Ingraham, the 
accomplished and successful principal of this School, 
the following extracts on this subject from Ellis's 
" History of New Bedford and Vicinity : " — 

"In 1880, Charles W. Clifford, William J. Potter, 
Charles H. Peirce, and Edmund Grinnell were 
chosen members of the Board of Trustees." 

" What should the Trustees do ? Fortunately the 
testator himself, by the very terms of the will, and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



XXXV 



more particularly by the codicil of April 26, 1858, 
had shown his foresight of changed conditions. In- 
deed, the courts of Massachusetts have favored that 
interpretation of the language of public bequests 
which recognizes that testators have some knowl- 
edge of human affairs. Twenty years had passed 
since the death of Mr. Swain. The city schools had 
reached a high degree of efficiency, and there were 
nourishing private schools. The field seemed to be 
already occupied. What was to be done ? 

"The solution of this problem was due to the 
sagacity of the Rev. William J. Potter. He con- 
ceived the idea of university extension before that 
phrase was heard among us, or rather of something 
that contained the essential element of university 
extension — of something that competent judges pro- 
nounced better than university extension — of some- 
thing, however, that may be worked in harmony with 
university extension : of a permanent local institution 
for higher education, not a fitting school, necessarily, 
to prepare the young to pass a definite examination, 
not a training-school, necessarily, where constant 
practice for many hours a day and for many days in 
a year must be enforced to insure quickness and 
accuracy in doing something useful. These things 
might be secured incidentally, but the main purpose 
should be to furnish opportunities of culture to those 
who either had or wished to have the sentiment and 
the idea of culture. 

" With ages ranging from fifteen to sixty ; with no 
other occupation than school work or with the cares 
of household and business ; attending constantly or 



xxx vi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



unable to attend except at rare intervals ; studying 
for a livelihood or for enlarged experience ; both men 
and women and girls and boys have appreciated the 
efforts that have been put forth to meet their wants, 
and have helped to make the school a monument to 
its founder." 

VII. 

With all this varied and successful activity as a 
preacher and a citizen, however, Potter exerted the 
deepest, widest, and most lasting influence of his life 
through the Free Religious Association. One of its 
three original founders in 1867, from its foundation 
to his own death, a period of twenty-six years, he 
was pre-eminently the directing mind of this Asso- 
ciation, serving it for fifteen years as Secretary and 
for eleven years as President ; and his connection 
with it has made his name historic. For no history 
of the development of religious thought and life in 
America, from the close of the Civil War, in 1865, 
to the Columbian Exposition and the World's Parlia- 
ment of Religions, in 1893, can possibly be written, 
unless the intellectual movement from Christianity 
to Free and Universal Religion, represented by 
the Free Religious Association, shall be made its 
fundamental theme. This intellectual movement, it 
is true, has been very much larger than any visible 
activities of the Association ; but the Association 
remained during that period its chief social expres- 
sion, while "The Index," so closely connected with 
the Association, remained for the greater part of 
that period, from 1870 until 1887, its chief literary 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxxvii 



expression. The movement itself, in general, was 
the intellectual advance from Transcendentalism or 
Mysticism to Scientific Method in religious philos- 
ophy, and from Christianity to Universal Religion 
in ethics and social organization. These two great 
transitions, which in truth are co-extensive with the 
religious movement of the whole civilized world, are 
still very far from being completed ; we are still 
in the midst of them ; and the Free Religious Asso- 
ciation itself, as their most advanced representative 
or exponent, has lapsed since Potter's death, and 
mainly because of the loss of his sagacious leader- 
ship, into a state of arrested development. 

For, after a year's experience on the Pacific coast 
as the free missionary of free religion, and after the 
powerful stimulus to thought imparted by presence 
and participation in the great religious Parliament at 
Chicago, Potter returned to the East with a deep 
and clear conviction of the necessity of what he 
called a " new departure " in the work of religious 
reform. At first he was inclined to believe that this 
" new departure " must be made independently of 
the Free Religious Association, which perhaps had 
already fulfilled its mission and might now grace- 
fully give way to a new society, founded on per- 
ception of the practical as well as theoretical impos- 
sibility of reconciling the principles of Universal 
Religion with the mutually exclusive claims of the 
various historical religions, and devoted to the enter- 
prise of organizing local congregations, in "avowed 
independence " of all historical religions, on the basis 
of Universal Religion alone. This was his own un- 



xxxviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



prompted proposal. To the suggestion, however, 
that the constitution of the Free Religious Associa- 
tion, which had originally been drafted in accordance 
with the spirit of Universal Religion, and from 
which even the mention of Christianity had been 
intentionally excluded, might easily be developed 
into a form which should realize the " new depart- 
ure " through the Free Religious Association itself, 
Potter lent a ready and sympathetic ear. After care- 
ful deliberation, he concluded that the wisest plan 
was to submit a proposition of constitutional amend- 
ments to the Free Religious Association at the 
Annual meeting of 1894, and allow the fate of this 
measure to decide the question whether the impera- 
tively needed "new departure" should be effected 
through this Association, or through a new one spe- 
cially framed for the purpose. Owing to the tem- 
peramental moderation and caution already alluded 
to, Potter had not arrived at the conclusion that this 
" new departure " was the clear need and duty of the 
hour, until his own experience, as a missionary of 
free religion, and as both a spectator and a partici- 
pant in the World's Parliament of Religions, had 
convinced him that it was a practical necessity of 
the actually existing situation ; he waited until the 
logic of ideas was confirmed by the logic of events. 
But, this once made plain to him, he hesitated no 
longer. When I asked him directly whether, if the 
Free Religious Association should decline to take up 
the work of organizing local societies on the basis 
of avowed independence of Christianity and avowed 
acceptance of Universal Religion alone, he was ready 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



xxxix 



to favor practically the formation of a new Associa- 
tion for that express purpose, his reply was an em- 
phatic yes; and he added that, in this case, Chicago 
would probably be a better place than Boston for 
starting the new movement. It was this answer 
which induced me to attend the conference of friends 
of the Free Religious Association in Boston, Decem- 
ber ii, and to lay before them a draft of amend- 
ments, previously approved without hesitation or 
reservation by Potter himself, which would adapt 
the constitution of the Association to the positive 
and energetic prosecution of the " new departure." 
But, scarcely three weeks from that day, that noble 
heart had ceased to beat. Deprived of its long re- 
vered leader, the Free Religious Association adopted 
the amendments, indeed, but in a mutilated form 
which, by omitting the cardinal point of " avowed 
independence," deprived them of all significance as 
a " new departure." The death of its leader was the 
death of its own leadership, too, and the world waits 
for its successor. 

Further details are unnecessary here. But justice 
and fidelity to Potter's memory require that so much 
as this be recorded in this place. When, half a 
century hence, not only America, but the whole 
world as well, shall be thickly dotted with temples to 
Universal Religion, devoted to the pursuit of re- 
ligious truth in the freedom of the scientific method, 
and emancipated from all dependence upon Brah- 
manism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Moham- 
medanism, or any other particular historical religion, 
let it not be forgotten that William J. Potter was 



xl 



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one of the few prophetic minds of the nineteenth 
century who welcomed the dawn of that wider and 
wiser civilization, and spent his life in the effort to 
hasten its coming. Let it be not forgotten that he 
who did more than any other one man, nay, than all 
other men together, for the Free Religious Asso- 
ciation, and who would fain have led this little com- 
pany as explorers and pioneers and first possessors 
into the " promised land," died with the clear Pisgah- 
vision of its beauty in his soul and before his eyes. 
Doubt of this statement must disappear before these 
words in his leading address at Chicago, September 
20, 1893 : "Following the logical lines of a growing 
unity in thought and purpose among the most en- 
lightened and spiritual minds of all faiths, the Free 
Religious Association has been prognosticating the 
actual ultimate union of all the great faiths of the 
world in one religion ; and this not by the conversion 
of all the others to any one of the faiths, but by the 
conversion and education of them all to the per- 
ception of a higher realm of truth. A quarter of a 
century ago, when the Free Religious Association 
was organized on a basis which, as to rights of mem- 
bership, obliterated the line separating Christianity 
from other faiths, such a prophecy as this was some- 
times ventured, but was apt to be regarded as the 
wild dream of a mere visionary. But to-day our 
most glowing visions pale before advancing reality. 
I make bold to say that we who are now living will 
behold — nay, may already behold — the dawn of 
the day of a new religion, which is to be really uni- 
versal in its principles and as broad as humanity in 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Xli 



its boundaries ; which is not, however, to be Chris- 
tianity, nor Judaism, nor Buddhism, nor Neo-Brah- 
manism, but a new faith into which the specific re- 
ligions are in form to die that they may continue 
to live in spiritual substance. The meaning of the 
Free Religious Association, to me, culminates in this 
thought; and, in the remaining time during which I 
shall ask your attention, would that I had the power 
to impress the thought on your minds with the force 
with which it sometimes comes to my own ! " 

The last great effort of Potter's life was dedicated 
to the practical realization of this thought in the 
Free Religious Association itself. He died before 
the effort had succeeded ; and without him the effort 
failed. Through this Association he would fain have 
laid, in concrete reality, the corner-stone of the 
church of the future, the free church of the Ideal ; 
but the Association lacked insight or courage enough 
to take that next step forward in its own develop- 
ment which would have consummated the hope and 
aim of its dead leader, or to rise to his spiritual 
height. This testimony must his old companion 
for twenty-six years, his friend in private and 
his comrade in public, bear to the purity of his 
spiritual perception, the splendor of his moral cour- 
age, and the crowning act of loyalty in his lifelong 
self-consecration to the truth. The future will 
recognize this forward-facing movement of his latest 
leadership as the most enduring monument to his 
memory ; for it indissolubly associates his name with 
the advent of Universal Religion as the supreme 
renovating force of human history, the supreme hope 
of the world in the long centuries to come. 



xlii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



VIII. 

Preacher, citizen, religious leader — Potter was all 
of these, not, perhaps, in the superlative sense, yet 
still in a sense so full and noble as to insure a grate- 
ful remembrance of his work for many generations. 
But the faithful worker is always greater than his 
work, and Potter was most of all a man. Some 
miscellaneous extracts from the few early journals 
alluded to, insertion of which in the order of time 
would have had the effect of giving to those early 
years a disproportionate prominence, as compared 
with the later years of which I have no records at 
command, will throw a stronger light on some of the 
most striking traits of his character than could be 
thrown by any abstract analysis or description. 

North Dartmouth, Nov. 23, 1847: "The idea en- 
tered my head to-day of going to Bridgewater to 
Normal School. Think I shall ask father again, 
though I do not want him to pay my board. I know 
that he wants me to be a farmer, and that I shall 
have to oppose his wishes to be a teacher. But I 
feel as though farming is not intended for me, and 
that I shall do more good in some other sphere. 
The question has often occurred to me, whether we 
should be directed entirely as to our employment by 
the choice of our parents. It seems to me that 
there is in each of us something which seems to 
point out our allotment — the sphere in which it is 
designed for us to labor. I am aware that this may 
at times, like the magnetic needle, be attracted out 



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xliii 



of its natural direction. But this is far from being 
necessarily the case, and, when it does happen, is 
the result of mismanagement. I would not without 
reason oppose my father's wishes. I exceedingly 
dislike to do so, even when there is reason for it. 
Most gladly would I remain here, did I consider it 
for my benefit, and, perhaps it will not be too much 
to add, the benefit of my fellow-men. Here are my 
sunniest moments ; home is, and will ever be, the 
centre of my enjoyment. It radiates every circle in 
which I tread, howsoever far removed, and thus will 
it ever be. Farming would be delightful, could I be 
satisfied with it ; but I should not feel that I were 
doing all that I had the capability of. I do not 
leave it from any dishonorable motive. I respect it 
as an employment. Earth has not a more honorable 
one." 

Nov. 25, 1847: "Inquired of father to-day in 
relation to going to Bridgewater. He spoke very 
discouragingly, and almost induced me to resolve to 
say no more about leaving the farm, but to content 
myself to remain upon it through life. He overcame 
my feelings by alluding to the probability that he 
would not dwell on earth much longer, and that then 
there would be no one to take his place. In the 
bitter thought of the moment, I believed that I had 
been doing wrong, and that it would be right for me 
to sacrifice all my plans of future life and live at 
home as contented as possible. But I am myself 
again ; and reason, and, I think I may say, con- 
science, tell me to still press forward;. and press for- 
ward I must." 



xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Nov. 29, 1847: "Well, it is decided that I shall 
go to Bridgewater. A committee-man of Westport 
came for me to take a school. I asked father which 
I should do — take the school or go to the Normal. 
He told me to take my choice ; which, of course, I 
did. He seems quite reconciled to my going — more 
so than at either of the last two terms that I have 
spent at Providence. I am glad that it is so ; it has 
always been a source of regret to me to be at school 
without his entire and free consent." 

Who that knew Potter intimately in his later life 
can fail to recognize, in this simple and serious story 
of his own action by the boy of eighteen, almost all 
the traits that characterized the mature man — the 
" sweet reasonableness," the fairness and soundness 
of judgment, the ready response to any appeal made 
to his sympathy or natural affections, the tenderness 
of his heart, the elevation of his motives, the modesty 
and conscientiousness of his disposition, and withal 
the quiet and amiable but indomitable pertinacity 
with which, notwithstanding any and all opposing 
considerations, he always adhered in the end to any 
conclusion in thought or any decision in life at 
which he had once independently and deliberately 
arrived ? Never was there a better illustration of 
the truth of Wordsworth's famous line : "The child 
is father of the man." In Potter's vocabulary there 
was no such word as surrender. 

Bridgewater, Feb. 13, 1848: "I observed yester- 
day a father drawing his little son on a sled. The 
little boy said, ' Why don't you go into the road ? 
You said you would.' What caused that boy to ask 



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xlv 



this question but an instinctive consciousness of 
moral principle — an idea that his father was bound 
to do as he had promised ? Had that boy's heart 
been depraved, evil, and corrupt, had he known by 
nature the sins of lying and deceiving, would he have 
thought it strange that his father should not do as 
he said he would ? " 

Yarmouth, July 9, 1848 : " Have given up the idea 
of going to Roundout, so that I have quite a different 
story to write from that of last night. After I con- 
cluded to go, I could not feel quite easy about it. 
To go off without the consent of my father was some- 
thing I had never done, and, though I did not think 
he would have any objection, yet I did not know it. 
At any rate, he could not tell me I might go. This 
was a thought which troubled me at Nantucket, and 
probably prevented my staying more than anything 
else. In meeting, to-day, I looked over the reasons 
on both sides of the question, the motives which 
were operating to induce me to go, and the obstacles 
which seemed to be in the way, and I came to the 
conclusion that it is my duty to go home. I feel 
under some obligations to work a little this vacation. 
It was very kind in father to let me have the time 
and money to make this visit, and I think I ought to 
make some return and not take more liberty. The 
thought of the pleasure which I should derive from 
the journey would sometimes intrude itself, and 
somewhat shake my convictions of duty. But con- 
science finally approved my judgment, and I settled 
the matter by saying to friend A. after the meeting, 
i I shall not go to Roundout.' " 



xlvi 



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Kingston, Dec. 10, 1848: "He [Potter's success- 
ful predecessor in the Kingston school] was easy, 
social, familiar, fond of activity, and, I should judge, 
rather averse to retirement. My character, if I can 
rightly judge it, is compounded of some qualities 
very opposite. I am stiff, unsocial, distant, so re- 
served as to be almost uncivil, apparently preferring 
solitude and self to all else. To all of these charges 
my first appearance will bear full evidence. But to 
the last of them, in justice to myself, I shall plead 
'not guilty,' I sometimes love solitude ; it is a part 
of my nature to love it, and I have taken little pains 
to wean myself from it. But I do not love it always. 
I am sometimes as lonesome as other folks, and suffer 
as much from this cause as any one need to. I can- 
not at one step make strangers my acquaintances, 
and, until I am perfectly acquainted, I cannot feel at 
home. All my intimate, real acquaintances are few 
and slowly formed. I now greatly, severely miss a 
few bosom friends to whom I can unburden my 
pent-up thoughts. But I must wait till they are 
found. Perhaps the materials for them are here 
somewhere in store for me ; and yet I may leave 
Kingston and not have a single real acquaintance ! 
This may appear improbable, if not insane, to others, 
but to me it is far otherwise. I know myself as I 
think no other does, except Him who knows us all. 
What I mean by a real acquaintance is one with 
whom I can associate for hours, days, or any length 
of time, and feel perfectly at home, exhibit unre- 
strained freedom, and feel that it is no effort to con- 
verse. Now, when I look back upon my life and 



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xlvii 



think of the people with whom I have mingled, and 
find so few among them whom I can call real ac- 
quaintances, — when I reflect that during my whole 
course at Bridgewater I formed scarcely more than 
half a dozen such, and that my room-mates, one for 
fourteen weeks and another for twenty-two, are not 
of this number, the thought that I may leave Kings- 
ton without a single acquaintance is to me far from 
visionary. It is an idea whose reality I dread. Not 
that I shall have no friends here ; I have some 
already whose friendship I prize. Neither would I 
say that all my Bridgewater friends can be reckoned 
under the figure o, for it would be unjust both to 
them and me. No, many, many are the choice spir- 
its whom I can number as my friends, and to meet 
whom would give me extreme joy. But they are not 
all such intimate acquaintances that I feel perfect 
freedom in their presence. Friendship may exist 
without a perfect acquaintance. Close attachments 
may be formed between those whose everyday 
thoughts and feelings are unknown to each other. It 
is not necessary that our simplest, undressed, and 
most common thoughts should be known to another, 
in order to gain his esteem, attachment, and affec- 
tion. These are known only to ourselves, our God, 
and real acquaintances. We sometimes want to let 
these thoughts escape. They become burdensome, 
and it is then that we feel the need of an intimate> 
real acquaintance — such a one as I am aching for 
now, before whom I may once more appear just as 
I appear to myself." 

Kingston, Dec. 18, 1848: "Another beautiful 



xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

day. School has been large and pleasant. Had 
forty this afternoon. I have been in good spirits, 
and the scholars appeared so, too. In fact, I have 
felt quite happy all day. This evening I have made 

two visits : one at Deacon 's, a fine old man of 

sixty-eight, who has a very comfortable home, quite 
a property, a social wife, and a handsome niece living 

with him ; the other at Mr. 's, who has also a 

comfortable home, with a fine wife and three children. 
They are all boys, and all come to school. They 
came part way home with me, and commenced talk- 
ing about the stars. I pointed out some of the finest 
constellations and brightest stars, giving some of 
their names. They appeared interested and desirous 
of knowing more, were very respectful, and seemed 
happy to have my company. I was no less so to 
have theirs. It really did me good. I wish I could 
be with a few of my scholars at a time every evening. 
I do not like to see them shy of me. I want to be 
free, candid, and familiar with them ; I want to make 
them feel that I am not merely their ' master,' but 
their real teacher and friend. This day has been 
one of hope ; may it not be succeeded by a morrow 
of disappointment ! Wilt thou bless it, O Father, 
from whom all our blessings flow ! May I receive 
fresh encouragement and renewed strength to press 
forward in the responsible work I have undertaken, 
doing nothing to the injury of my little flock, but 
with thy assistance bringing them nearer and nearer 
to thee !" 

Kingston, Jan. 3, 1849: "I have to-day attempted 
a little matter of discipline which may be worth re- 



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xlix 



cording. I have noticed for several days small balls 
of paper in considerable numbers upon the floor, 
and had discovered two of the rogues who helped to 
get them there, but had not informed them of it, as 
I was satisfied there must be others. After all the 
books were laid aside this forenoon, I mentioned the 
circumstance, and also that I knew two of the offend- 
ers, but did not give their names. I spoke some 
time of the wrongfulness of the act ; that the fact 
that they had tried to conceal it was strong evidence 
that those scholars who had performed it knew it 
was wrong and that they might justly deserve pun- 
ishment ; but that I was in hopes the thing might be 
stopped without it. Here one of the boys volun- 
tarily confessed himself guilty, and gave to me the 
instrument he had used to blow the paper about the 
room. I then asked all who would be willing to ac- 
knowledge the fault, had they committed it, to rise. 
All rose. I then asked all who had done so to rise. 
Eight of the boys rose, several of whom, without my 
asking, resolved that they should not do so again. 
I then asked how many were willing to join in the 
resolution, and found that all were. Then I told 
them I should inquire at the close of the week how 
many had kept their resolution. It has been kept 
well this afternoon, as far as I have observed." 

Kingston, Feb. 4, 1849: "A week ago to-day I 
went over to Duxbury to see Mr. Kendall, and had 
the good fortune to meet some other Normal friends. 
I had a very fine visit, well worth the walk over and 
back again. I have come back, though, with my de- 
sires for going to College rekindled. Mr. Kendall 



1 



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will enter at next Commencement — wish I were 
ready to go with him, but how I am to go is not yet 
revealed to me. Sometimes I feel as though I would 
say, I will go, and will press forward in spite of all 
opposition until my will is affected." 

Sandwich, May 20, 1849: "The characteristic un- 
fixedness of my vocation has at length brought me 
here, just into the limits of Cape Cod. I engaged a 
school here, before I went home after my winter's 
siege in Kingston. . . . My winter's labors, trials, and 
failures had somewhat diminished my zeal ; they had 
given me a truer and more practical sense of the 
duties, responsibilities, and difficulties of the profes- 
sion I had chosen, and had taught me the useful, 
though humiliating fact, that I possessed not the 
ability to do what I had once looked upon as an easy 
task, or rather no task at all. But, though I had 
gained a more perfect knowledge of my inability for 
the work of teaching, though my ambition was some- 
what humbled, my hopes crushed, my prospects 
clouded, yet duty pointed out no other course of life ; 
inclination fastened upon no easier nor more lucra- 
tive employment. To become a teacher had long 
been the object of my desires, for which I had in 
some measure prepared myself, and to attain which 
I had met some crosses, encountered some opposi- 
tion at the risk of being thought wanting in filial 
duty, made some sacrifices. Thank Heaven that 
my purpose was too fixed, my plan of life too far 
matured, to be overthrown by fickle fortune or un- 
dermined by dark discouragement. Most rejoiced 
was I, when I reached home, to find that I should 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



li 



no longer have to oppose a father's wishes by con- 
tinuing in the course I had commenced. His views 
seemed more nearly to accord with my own than 
they had ever done before. He was perfectly will- 
ing, and I think considered it best, that I should 
pursue teaching; indeed, I did not complete my en- 
gagement here, until he freely expressed his con- 
sent. I can now labor more easily, more freely ; a 
burden seems lifted from my shoulders. But I fear 
I have soon again to oppose his wishes, or give up 
hopes which have long lived in my bosom with little 
prospect of becoming realities, until recently, when 
they have assumed the more definite form of plans, 
only awaiting time to become actions. I have finally 
formed the determination to go to college, and have 
even set the day. If all things go favorably till then, 
I think of entering one year from next Commence- 
ment. Am going to spend all my spare time this 
summer in preparing. I am induced to take this 
step, not because I think college celebrity is neces- 
sary to success, but because I think college study 
will make me more useful. Men to become self- 
taught must possess a peculiar turn of mind, and it 
will not do for all or for many to trust to themselves. 
I am aware I shall go among numerous temptations, 
but I believe I shall be preserved. We live in a 
world of temptation which we cannot shun, but must 
meet. No one can live through the college course 
without being strengthened in virtue or tainted with 
vice. The former is certainly desirable, and by cau- 
tion, watchfulness, and prayer can be attained." 
North Dartmouth, June 26, 1849: "Rose at half 



lii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



past four. Dressed and went into the garden, and 
worked, with the exception of twenty minutes for 
breakfast, till half past eight. Came in, bathed, 
changed clothes, and commenced studying at nine — 
continued till twelve — read six pages of Caesar. 
Was intending to study Greek this afternoon, but 
father wanted me to make hay, which I have done ; 
and, to testify to it, I have six fine blisters upon my 
hands — my shoulders feel lame and my legs very 
stiff. This evening I have read three and a half 
more pages of Caesar, which finishes the fourth book. 
I commenced it last night ; there are seventeen and 
a half pages in it. The clock strikes ten, and I must 
go to bed. Rise to-morrow morning at four." 

North Dartmouth, June 27, 1849: "Have been 
to monthly meeting. There were several strange 
ministers present, two from England. One of them 
delivered a long discourse on the commencement 
and experience of the true Christian. I presume it 
was good Quaker doctrine, but it savored too much 
of 'human depravity' and of 'self-abhorrence' to 
suit my taste. I cannot understand why we should 
so utterly and completely abhor ourselves. God has 
made us, and should we abhor any of his works ? 
We should abhor and endeavor to cast out the sin 
that is within us ; but that we are all sin I cannot 
believe. A great deal of Quaker theology grows 
more and more mysterious to me, the more I think 
about it. I have always considered myself a Quaker 
on all the great points of their doctrine, but it is 
merely because I have been accustomed to take 
them as truth without any thought at all. I am in- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



liii 



clined to believe that this is the case with a great 
many birthright members, and that the Society suf- 
fers greatly from such members. They are Quakers 
simply because they were brought up in the Society, 
having no actual convincement of the truth of its 
doctrines. My mind at present is totally unsettled 
in regard to what orthodoxy and even more liberal 
sects would deem the essentials of a Christian. I 
never expect and never care, while I have my pres- 
ent views, to find a church whose creed I would 
adopt. I am perfectly sick of everything in the 
shape of a religious creed. What a vast variety 
there is ! And all interpretations of the Bible ! 
One would suppose that, if the Bible was revealed 
from God, it would be sufficiently plain to every 
understanding." 

North Dartmouth, June 29, 1849: "'When I 
would do good, evil is present with me.' I some- 
times almost despair of there being any one to help 
me, even an Almighty. What evidence have I of 
his existence ? Do I even feel an inward conscious- 
ness that he exists, as I do of myself ? Have I a 
real, living, moving faith in the superintending provi- 
dence of a God, or do I only believe in him from tra- 
dition ? O Almighty One, if there be such a being, 
what art thou ? How can we know thee — how feel 
thee ? Is there such a thing as man's actually hold- 
ing communion with thee ? If so, what is it ? How- 
can it be done ? Can my spirit ever attain to this 
honor ? How can spirits mingle together ? How 
knozv they mingle together, and the time ? How do 
they become acquainted? How enjoy each other's 



liv 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



society ? O, will my poor, sinning, trembling soul 
ever know these things ? Shall I ever have faith — 
shall I ever cease to doubt ? I know that all Nature 
speaks a God ; but I want to know, I want to feel, I 
want to speak to that God myself. I feel sometimes 
impatient for my spirit to leave this body, that I may 
know what is behind the curtain that is spread be- 
tween time and eternity. But am I prepared for 
this ? If Death should come to-night, this moment, 
should I be willing to meet it ? O no, I should plead 
for a little longer ; I should try, I fear, to cheat Death 
by fair promises of what I would do, if he would 
suffer me to remain. What omissions of duty, what 
commissions of evil, would crowd themselves upon 
me! And when will they be less — ah, when? I 
pray that it may be soon." 

North Dartmouth, July i, 1849: " My mind has 
become somewhat calmed, though it is still full of 
doubts in respect to almost all the great doctrines 
of our various religious sects, and particularly those 
of Quakers. I long ago resolved to submit every- 
thing, whether of a religious nature or otherwise, to 
the test of reason, being satisfied that Christianity 
is a rational religion, and capable of withstanding the 
search and the criticism of the keenest intellect. I 
knew that I considered many things as true solely 
because I had been brought up among them, where 
their truth was never questioned ; and I know I hold 
many such things about me now, but they are be- 
coming less and less. Every day I find myself rest- 
ing upon another's convictions, pinning my faith 
upon another's sleeve ; and every day I try to tear 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Iv 



myself away, even though strongly attached thereto, 
and I find nowhere else to rest. Sometimes I feel 
as though the very foundations of my soul were 
breaking up, and that I should never find a settling 
place. But it matters not whether I ever come to 
any conclusion upon these subtile points of theology, 
if I can only settle upon true Christianity. But, 
should I tell all my thoughts, I should hardly be 
considered a friend of this by very many professing 
Christians. The great points that are a burden to 
me now are the character of Christ, the atonement, 
the nature of salvation, immediate revelation, the 
authority and inspiration of the scriptures, the min- 
istry and worship. Among this vast multitude com- 
prising what are considered the most essential truths 
of the Gospel, I do not feel that it is essentially 
necessary, however desirable it may be, to decide 
upon either. The language arises spontaneously 
over all my inward strivings : 1 If thou doest well, 
shalt thou not be accepted ? ' Teach me, O God, of 
thine own wisdom ! " 

The last three extracts, portraying as remarkable 
and as pathetic a struggle as ever took place in a 
human soul between the imprisoning forces of an 
inherited thought-system and the irresistible vital 
energies of nascent reason, could not have been 
omitted without leaving in utter obscurity the origin 
of much that was noblest in Potter's character and 
career. But I have hesitated not a little whether it 
would be wise to publish without at least one 
omission the record of his thoughts on the day of 
his majority. Ought so frank a reference to his 



Ivi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



personal appearance as is contained in the following 
entry to be submitted to alien eyes ? In answering 
this question, I have allowed myself to be governed 
by the effect of that passage on my own mind. It is 
so characteristic, so full of a pitiless sincerity and 
uncompromising truthfulness and rarest freedom 
from all the delusions of personal self-conceit, that 
it seems to me to have sprung unconsciously out of 
the innermost nobilities of his nature, and to tell as 
nothing else could how strong a passion for truth 
burned in his heart's core. Even if this early pho- 
tograph of the boy had remained a correct likeness of 
the man, it would still be invaluable in its ethical 
aspect. But whoever saw Potter in public when his 
fine face was lighted up with the glow of great ideas 
and lofty ideals, — whoever met him in private and 
had insight enough to see the inward majesty of the 
soul mirrored in the whole outward aspect of the 
body, — must recognize, in this striking contrast 
between the boy and the man, a wonderful instance 
of the way in which Nature makes the psychical 
dominate the physical and write out the story of the 
victorious spirit in the gradual transfiguration of 
features and form. Let the ruthless description 
stand, if only as a foil to the serene and noble 
presence which we all loved to see, but shall see no 
more ! 

Taunton, Feb. i, 1850: "My twenty-first birth- 
day. I am now legally a man t a /w-man. The day 
has come which years ago, in my early youth, I was 
accustomed to anticipate with so much impatience 
and hope. Are my anticipations realized ? No. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lvii 



The years between looked long and weary. I ex- 
pected to find myself at twenty-one a new being, 
possessing hardly a quality by which I could recog- 
nize my then insignificant existence. I thought to 
feel, to act, and to know myself differently. I be- 
lieved I should scarcely identify the boy in the man ; 
that I should outgrow myself, and by some mysteri- 
ous process be converted into another being of dif- 
ferent perceptions and functions. But do I feel, act, 
and know myself any differently from what I did ten 
years ago ? Can I not identify the spindle-bodied, 
long-legged, large-nosed, freckle-faced, red-haired boy 
of eleven, in the somewhat taller but similarly 
featured form that I now wear ? And do I not 
inwardly perceive myself the same as then ? I cer- 
tainly do. The man is but the boy larger grown. 
But have I not changed ? I as certainly have. But 
the change has been rather a change in size than in 
nature — a development of what I then possessed 
rather than an exchange for something else — a slow 
and steady growth from the green and tender sapling 
to the height and magnitude of a tree. Thus grows 
the character — so slow the progress, so gradual the 
transition from one stage to another, so perfectly 
adapted the past that is to the past that has been, 
and the past that will be to the past that is, that we 
never lose the consciousness of its sameness. But, 
could I have been transported at once from myself 
in 1840 to myself in 1850, I opine I should not find 
it so easy to know myself ; and, could several 
characters be similarly transported across ten years 
of life, and then shaken up together and drawn out 



Iviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



by those who were their owners, I imagine there 
would be some curious mismatching. What a 
scramble there would be after a character ! And 
what kind of a character would be most in demand ? 
Sinful and grovelling as many are, and prone as we 
all are to evil, yet, so strong is the natural love of 
the heart for the virtues and the holy, that I am 
inclined strongly to the belief that each would choose 
and claim a virtuous character. Men do not 
plunge headlong into sin, any more than they rise at 
once to a sublime height of virtue. But no one 
sinks so low that he cannot distinguish and honor 
high-minded, consistent virtue, and that he would 
not gladly exchange his evil for good, could he do so 
by a simple act of the will. But the struggle is long 
and hard from vice to virtue ; his heart fails within, 
and the world without affords little sympathy or en- 
couragement. — Twenty-one years of my life have 
gone; more than a quarter, should I live to a 'good 
old age,' and a much greater part, probably, of what 
my life will probably be. I do not count upon a 
long sojourn here, nor do I wish it. I scarcely 
anticipate another twenty-one years. But how dif- 
ferent the twenty-one years to come from the twenty- 
one years that have passed ! These have been spent 
mostly in the quiet of home ; now I am to come out 
into the broad world. The past is the foundation on 
which the future is to be built. It is yet to be seen 
how it will stand the stormy elements of human 
society ; whether the structure of active life raised 
thereon will wave hither and thither at every shift of 
public opinion, and tremble at the blow of the critic's 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lix 



pen, and fall before the rush of opposition, or whether 
it will stand firm and unshaken, ever pointing up- 
wards to God as the centre of trust and faith, and as 
if upheld by the strength of his eternal arm. Prin- 
ciples that I have formed are now to be tested, 
theories to be practised, opinions to be expressed, 
and an influence to be thrown out into the mixed, 
fermenting mass of human materials around me. 
Am I ready for this ? Am I ready for life ? To go 
out into the world, to combat its ills, to withstand 
its snares, to endure its scorn and meet its opposi- 
tion ? Some dread to die; / rather dread to live. 
Life is a fearful, awful thing, great in responsibilities, 
filled with duties. But it must be met. Its responsi- 
bilities must be borne ; its duties must be performed ; 
and he only who is ready for these, ready to live, is 
ready to die." 

Taunton, July 17, 1850: "Those dreaded days 
have come and gone, and with them all anxious 
thoughts and dreary forebodings. To me the result 
is more than satisfactory. I can scarcely realize it. 
I am in college and free from all conditions — a 
thing I dared not dream of. I expected certainly to 
have two or three deficiencies to make up, and had 
made up my mind to consider myself lucky even 
with these. But when, last evening, I took in my 
hand the proffered paper, hardly daring to look at 
it, dreading the fate it was to reveal, and saw the 
announcement actually written out in words that I 
was a real member of the freshman class in Harvard 
College, clear of conditions, my mind would scarcely 
give credit to my senses. But so it was ; yet I 



Ix 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



could not believe it, until I was assured by Mr. 
Wheelwright, and others who had passed through 
the ordeal, that there was no delusion. My joy 
was irrepressible. It burst through every pore of 
my skin, lightened every motion of my limbs, could 
be heard in every sound of my voice. My mind 
seemed at once relieved of a heavy burden, a burden 
which for the last six weeks had pressed upon it so 
unremittingly that my only thought, speech, and act 
had been in reference to this one thing — college. 
My spirits at once resumed their wonted elasticity, 
and with a light heart I leaped upon an omnibus, in 
company with Mr. W. (who seemed equally joyous 
at the success of his three candidates), bound for 
Boston and thence for Roxbury, where I spent the 
night. An occurrence happened in Boston rather 
calculated to check the exuberance of my emotions. 
A gentleman who left the omnibus before my- 
self took my valise instead of his own, which he left 
for me and bid fair to be as much use to me as mine 
to him. What made the matter worse for myself, 
in the ecstasy of feeling with which I left Cambridge, 
I entirely forgot to take my pocketbook from my 
valise, which contained all my money, except a little 
change in my pocket. My sudden depression of 
spirits was but momentary, however, as Mr. Wheel- 
wright assured me that he knew the man who had 
taken it, that he was a good honest clergyman, and 
would probably be in Cambridge at the Commence- 
ment to-day, when, if I would go back again, I might 
make the exchange. Feeling perfectly satisfied that 
I should get the valise again, I comforted myself for 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxi 



the night, being without a change of clothing and 
the indispensables of making a toilet, with the 
thought of the good minister's ideas when he should 
find that he had purloined a valise, and was without 
nightshirt or razor and perhaps minus some of his 
sermons. This morning I went over to Cambridge, 
and there learned by inquiry that my valise was left 
at the omnibus office in Boston. I accordingly went 
back to Boston, made the exchange, and this after- 
noon, tired, heated through and through with the 
burning sun, which I had hardly been in contact 
with for several weeks, dusty, dirty, sweaty, and 
sleepy, I found my way back to Taunton again. 
'Action and reaction are equal and in opposite direc- 
tions ' is no less a truth of mental than of physical 
philosophy ; hence I am now beginning to experi- 
ence a vacancy of life and activity corresponding to 
my fulness and buoyancy of spirits last night. 
Sleep, perhaps, will restore me, and to sleep I go." 

North Dartmouth, June 20, 185 1 : "Spent last 
week at Newport — went on with father to the 
Yearly Meeting, which I had given up all thoughts 
of ever attending again. This probably is the last 
time. I find little in the Quaker Society that com- 
mends itself to my understanding or my heart. I 
am no Quaker in doctrine or in spirit. They are 
too Calvinistic in the former, too sectarian in the 
latter. I do not like this keeping apart from other 
societies and the world. We want more of brother- 
hood among mankind — more of the family union ; 
this the Quakers do not cherish." 

Between July 18, 1851, and August 6, 1857, when 



Ixii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



he "left home for Europe," Potter seems to have 
kept no journal; at least, none has been found. On 
August 9, he sailed from New York for Europe, 
where he travelled and studied over a year. The 
following passage from his journal on the outward 
voyage is of more than usual significance, as mark- 
ing a phase of his theological thought which was 
never wholly abandoned in subsequent years, and 
yet was never logically developed in either its theo- 
retical or its practical aspect — a development which, 
in a mind so conscientious as his, would have led to 
an early retirement from the ministry. The concep- 
tion here outlined remained undeveloped even in his 
own mind; yet I think it was a source of some 
vagueness and confusion in his preaching, so far 
as its philosophical side alone was concerned, and 
would have impaired even its practical value, if his 
deep religiousness of nature had not come to the 
rescue and saved him from a too rigorously logical 
evolution and application of his own conception : — 
At sea, Aug. 14, 1857: "The lesson that I 
learned from the ocean was, in fact, the confirma- 
tion of my theology, or perhaps more properly its 
reflection : namely, that the Infinite becomes mani- 
fest to itself only in the finite, — that the Infinite, 
Absolute, Eternal, lies as a vast boundless sea, with- 
out soundings and without horizon, in perfect, un- 
conscious rest, a great storehouse of. powers in per- 
fect harmony and repose ; so soon as motion, form, 
thought appear, so soon as these powers come into 
activity, there begins the finite. Our ship, too, as 
she took up the winds, and rode triumphantly over 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxiii 



the waves, was a symbol to me of man's relation to 
God. The ship, by being built in conformity to the 
ascertained laws of fluids and of mechanics, was able 
to use the great powers that lay in the sea and the 
winds. So man, learning the laws of his being and 
conforming his character and conduct thereto, brings 
into action the very power and strength of God." 

Berlin, Oct. 15, 1857: "To-night I am in new 
quarters — find my room much more cheerful than 
the old one — feel more at home and better able to 
work. I had quite an amusing adventure with my 
Wirth as I left him. I thought his bill too high, 
and struck off from it one thaler and ten sgr., giving 
him my reasons. Of course, they were not suffi- 
cient for him, and he insisted upon the whole. I 
then told him to receipt the bill for so much, and, if 
he wanted more, to go to the Universitdtsgericht — 
which I had been told was a sure way to bring an 
exorbitant Wirth to terms. He still refused. I 
then told him to make out an honest bill, and call 
upon me at my new room when he was ready to set- 
tle it honestly; whereupon I took my carpet-bag and 
shawl to go out. My trunks were already on a 
droscJike at the door. He stepped quickly before me 
and fastened the door, calling at the same time to 
his wife to summon a policeman. My Wirth and 
Wirthin pleaded their cause before him in their 
fluent German. I, luckily perhaps, knew but few 
words for stating mine, — told him the proposals I 
had made, which I again repeated, again offering to 
pay what I thought just and accept the bill re- 
ceipted for that amount. My Wirth still not acced- 



Ixiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



ing to this, the policeman told me to leave the 
things I had in the room for security and go without 
paying. But, not knowing precisely what security 
I was to have for the things, which were, moreover, 
articles of indispensable daily use, I demurred to 
the decision. The policeman went off, and matters 
stood as before, I a prisoner. The only way the 
Wirth could keep me in the room was to stay there 
himself, and so it seemed that the case would have 
to be decided by the sitting-out process, which we 
commenced in good earnest. My Wirth soon began 
to show signs of yielding. He offered to strike off 
one item of ten sgr. (25 cents) ; which I informed 
him was very good, but not enough. Again another 
long sitting. My Wirth, perhaps, begins to calcu- 
late how many shoes he is likely to lose the mend- 
ing of by this process ; and by and by he offers to 
strike off another item of one-half a thaler. Pru- 
dence would perhaps have suggested that I should 
not push my cause any farther, as he had now come 
more than half way to meet me. But, as I regarded 
myself the representative of justice, I was deter- 
mined to stand or fall with it, and so again informed 
him that his offer was very good, but still not 
enough. Again we resort to the argument of sit- 
ting, and this time he is convinced of the propriety 
of my proposal, accepts what I had offered to pay 
him, receipts the bill for so much, opens the door, 
and I go out in triumph with my property, fully con- 
fident that I shall hear nothing more of my Wirth or 
the balance of his bill. I feel that I almost deserve 
a triumphal procession from the hands of all for- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxv 



eigners for this victory over a Berlin cheat, in which 
I trust I may be pardoned if I take an honest 
pride." 

Berlin, Oct. 31, 1857: "I was summoned to-day 
before the Universitatsgericht to answer an action 
entered by my old Wirlh to recover the balance of 
his bill ; and so the comedy is likely to have several 
more acts, and perhaps (for me) prove a tragedy, 
after all. To-day there wasn't much progress in the 
action of the drama. The court couldn't understand 
English and the defendant couldn't understand Ger- 
man — case deferred till Dr. Lolly, the English pro- 
fessor, could be present to interpret. As I went out 
through the anteroom, I paid five sgr. to the attend- 
ant as the summons-fee — noticed that my Wirth 
went out without any such demand upon him." 

Berlin, Nov. 4, 1857: " Third Act to the Drama 
of My WirtJis Bill. Again summoned before the 
Universitatsgericht ', Dr. Lolly present. I grounded 
my defence on the fact that several German students, 
to whom I had shown the bill, had all declared the 
charges too high — that I was charged more for the 
same things than a German student under the same 
Wirth, In reply, the court said that it was a custom 
in regard to certain services, unless there was a 
special bargain made at the outset, to charge double 
the usual price; that is, a custom of cheating a 
stranger until he shall discover the cheat. But 
custom is common law, and so, of course, my defence 
in this respect was completely demolished. I had 
made another point against a special item for doing 
errands, nothing of consequence having been done 



Ixvi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



for me. Here the court again met me with a custom 
from the university at Halle, where, the court said, 
it was the usage among the amiable race of Wirths to 
make an extra charge for everything, even for the 
use and the making of the bed. I congratulated 
myself that I had not gone to Halle, but did not 
precisely see how this useful piece of information 
met my objection to paying for service which had 
not been done for me in Berlin. However, the court 
decided against me, and I was reduced now to make 
a point out of an item which I had before allowed 
to pass unquestioned. I was with my Wirth but 
twenty-seven days, and, of course, had eaten but 
twenty-seven breakfasts ; he had charged, however, 
for a full month, thirty. Being reduced to extrem- 
ities, I now brought up this fact, which, to my sur- 
prise, seemed to the court well made; but, either 
from the fact that the court had forgotten its arith- 
metic or because it was of opinion that the objection 
was only two-thirds just, it deducted two breakfasts 
instead of three (six sgr.), and gave its decision that 
I should pay the rest of the bill. I was not disposed 
further to martyr myself for the sake of justice by 
appealing to another court, having had quite enough 
experience of courts, and so laid down the cash, 
which my Wirth took with a malicious smile of 
victory. There was then a little afterpiece of half 
a thaler to pay for costs of the suit, and five sgr. 
more for the second summons. I again observed 
that my Wirth went out without paying anything. 
And so the second part of this drama ended not 
quite so triumphantly as the first ; I am now a con- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxvii 



quered, crest-fallen hero, my pride and my plumes 
trailing in the dust." 

Berlin, Dec. 10, 1857: "My Berlin life is becom- 
ing so regular that I find little new to be noted 
from day to day. The lectures, reading German 
and talking whenever I can find opportunity, con- 
certs, the picture gallery, and walks in and about 
the city, use up my time. As in America, so here 
I find myself generally alone. My progress in Ger- 
man is almost imperceptible. To master the lan- 
guage must be the labor of a life-time. I hope, 
however, to be able to enjoy Goethe and Schiller in 
their own tongue. I am now reading Iphigenie von 
Tauris with great delight." 

Berlin, Dec. 15, 1857: "The greatest day I have 
yet had in Berlin. Saw Humboldt at the American 
minister's, and had an opportunity of hearing him 
converse for a couple of hours. The Americans in 
the city were all invited there to meet him. As he 
entered the room and we all rose to receive him, he 
seemed a little embarrassed, but, as soon as he com- 
menced to talk, became perfectly at ease. In his 
manners he is extremely simple and childlike. 
Though in his eighty-ninth year, and this winter 
weakened by sickness, he would not sit so long as 
the ladies were standing. In stature he is much 
below the medium size, or, at least, seems so now 
that he is bent somewhat with years ; but his head 
is enormous, very high and large in front, and quite 
thickly covered with gray hair — his face rather 
small and flushed, eyes small, but very bright and 
piercing. In conversation he is wonderfully fluent, 



lxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

and very rapid in his transitions from one topic to 
another. He shows his immense learning, but with- 
out the slightest appearance of show. There is little 
need that any one should talk except to answer his 
questions, of which he puts very many. He is still 
lively, brilliant, and fond of humor — told a story 
capitally of a man who some twenty years ago took 
a plaster cast of him. The man, he said, remarked 
that he was always most fortunate with the casts 
of men who died soon after he took them. With 
a cast of Schiller (Schleiermacher ?) he was very 
fortunate, since he happily died a short time after 
it was taken, so that there was a large demand for 
it, and he sold a great number. ' The man, I think,' 
says Humboldt, ' must have been very unhappy with 
mine and very angry with me, since that was twenty 
years ago and I live yet.' Stuart, he said, painted 
a portrait of him while in America, for Jefferson, 
which was very good. He speaks English fluently, 
yet makes mistakes — forgets languages, he says, as 
he grows older and ceases to use them. He fre- 
quently exclaimed in the course of his conversation 
against his 'horrid English' — remarked that the 
similarity of the German and English makes it 
more difficult for a native of one country to speak 
well the language of the other, since he is con- 
tinually making literal translations and so failing 
in idioms. Some one asked him if he saw Jeffer- 
son while in America. He replied very quickly, 
' I saw but Jefferson, and that is the reason why I 
am so ignorant of the United States. I was in 
the United States but three months, half of which 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxix 



I spent with Jefferson at Washington.' He was in 
the United States in 1802 or 1803. His memory- 
is most extraordinary, yet becoming somewhat im- 
paired with regard to recent everyday affairs. He 
knows our early history most accurately — better, I 
think, than did any of his American audience — 
gives dates as if he were reading from a book. He 
had read Professor Lieber's Geology of South Car- 
olina — thought it excellent, and wished that Lieber 
might be sent as a geologist to California, of which 
all the geological accounts he had seen were very 
confused and gave him no idea of the formation of 
the land there. He spoke several times, and with 
earnestness, of the bad influence of excessive im- 
migration upon our country — thought the evil was 
not sufficiently apprehended by our people, that the 
foreign element would before long give us much 
trouble, and, he feared, prove disastrous to the gov- 
ernment. He is at present at work upon the fifth 
volume of the Kosmos, getting it ready for the 
press, in which he seems to be insensible to fatigues 
and the infirmities of age. His step was a little 
uncertain, as he went down the stairs to take his 
carriage, and his servant supported him. And I 
thought, as I saw him move away, that, had I waited 
to visit Europe twelve months later, it would have 
been too late to see this greatest marvel of learning 
that this age, or perhaps any age, has known." 

Heidelberg, Sept. 7, 1858 : " I got a new view and 
a most magnificent sunset this evening from the 
Geissberg. The whole Rhine valley seemed to be 
covered with an atmosphere of molten gold. And, 



Ixx 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



as I was returning to my room by the road that 
winds around the side of the hill, I came upon an- 
other view of the town and Neckar valley, as charm- 
ing as any I have found. The castle is also seen to 
good advantage. One is much lower down, indeed, 
than the summit of the Geissberg, but, by the help 
of a platform which has been built out upon a pro- 
jecting cliff, stands almost directly over the town, 
and looks down into the streets and squares and 
yards of the houses. As I stood there, the bells 
were ringing out their evening summons to rest, 
while the busy crowds were hurrying through the 
streets on the last errands of the day. The night 
crept slowly down the valley of the Neckar, drawing 
his curtain around one object after another, till at 
last he wrapped the old castle up in his thickest vest- 
ures of black and spread out a milder darkness over 
the whole expanse of the great Rhine plain. Only 
in the town was his course resisted, where the lamp- 
lighters with their ladders were running through the 
streets, and each marking his path by the train of 
fires he left behind him." 

Heidelberg, Oct. 3, 1858: "To-morrow I leave 
Heidelberg for Italy, and so to-day I have been visit- 
ing for the last time and taking leave of all my fa- 
vorite haunts. I have no friends to part with — 
nothing but nature and the castle. I stood long to- 
night, just after sunset, upon the great terrace, and 
gazed upon the noble ruin, till the shadows of night 
enveloped it. More lovingly than ever did the ivy 
seem to cling around the old weather-beaten stones, 
as if to hold them up against the assaults of time 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Ixxi 



and the elements. The trees within the walls, look- 
ing through the windows and reaching out their 
arms, I imagined, were inviting in the birds to give 
them shelter for the night. And with what strength 
the great octagonal tower stood there against the 
western sky ! And the hill-side below the ruin, with 
its fine wood of locusts, seemed to decline more 
gracefully than ever into the green lawn beneath, 
and then to slope away into the Neckar valley and 
the shadows of evening. I had previously taken my 
last look at the old knightly statues in their niches 
of stone and ivy, and at the beautiful front of Otto 
Heinrich's Building, which, according to the books, 
was constructed from a design by Michel Angelo. 
If so, one may still venture to admire it. It is a cu- 
rious circumstance that on this wall are combined 
the statues of Christian saints, of Roman celebrities, 
and of heathen divinities ; and at the very top, pro- 
jecting entire above the whole ruin, and in such an 
exposed position that it seems a marvel they have not 
been thrown down in any of the convulsions which 
the castle has suffered, are the statues of the two 
pagan gods, Jupiter and Pluto. They stand there, 
overlooking the whole ruin and town, as if to teach 
modern visitors humiliation at the thought of the 
Christian scenes of war and outrage which these old 
heathen deities have witnessed from their high sta- 
tions, and also to proclaim that heathenism had its 
side of truth which neither time can injure nor op- 
posing systems shake to pieces. I lingered long in 
the enchanted grounds after the crowd of Sunday 
visitors had departed, and then went up on the hill- 



Ixxii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



side back of the castle, where on music-days I have 
often sat under the great chestnuts in order to get 
away from the noise of tongues and beer-glasses. I 
have fancied, too, that the music, as it came wind- 
ing up among the trunks of the old trees, was all 
the sweeter for the fragrance of the fresh air ana 
the foliage which it caught in the ascent. It was 
here that I took my final leave of the castle, to re- 
turn to my room to the very unsentimental business 
of packing." 

Verona, Oct. 9, 1858: "I was struck, too, with 
the fact that many of the monuments [in the ceme- 
tery at Brescia] had been defaced with writing and 
images in pencil, while the more costly were pro- 
tected from such desecration by a covering of iron 
net-work. Could any American boy scribble upon a 
tombstone ? Perhaps there is something supersti- 
tious in that feeling of awe with which we at home 
are accustomed to walk among graves ; and yet, let 
us have this superstition a thousand times rather 
than the Italian, or perhaps more truly Catholic, in- 
difference to the dead. I saw the same hollow 
heartlessness more strikingly exhibited at a funeral 
ceremony in one of the churches. Some priests 
were performing the usual burial ceremony over a 
coffin in the centre of the church. I approached, 
feeling almost as if I were an intruder. It was the 
coffin of a child. But there was no mother there to 
shed her last tear over its remains, nor a single 
mourner around it. There was no one but the 
priests to perform their hollow service, and a few 
ragged children, who had followed the coffin in from 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxxiii 



curiosity, or, as I afterwards saw, for its spoils. 
The ceremony over, the priests departed. The sex- 
ton, with little regard to its contents, gave the coffin 
into the hands of four of the children, and it was 
carried out into a side room. Here, with as much 
handling as if it had been a bale of goods, it was 
stripped of its black drapery and of various orna- 
ments of lace, gilding, and artificial flowers. These 
were eagerly divided and carried off by the children, 
while the coffin, tossed aside upon some others that 
stood there, was left a shapeless rough box." 

Padua, Oct. 13, 1858: "We here picked up a 
cicerone, and in a few hours saw all that is worth 
seeing of this once famous town. There is not 
much that I shall remember except a picture by 
Guido Reni of 'John in the Wilderness,' which im- 
pressed me very much. I have seen nothing of 
Guido's before that I liked. But this is just such a 
painting as I would like to have in my room, ever 
before me. The attitude is a wonderful combination 
of ease with energy. There is a youthful simplicity 
in the whole figure, which one sees well will grow 
into manly honor and dignity ; and the countenance 
and eyes are all a-glow with a true boy's enthusiasm, 
which is to ripen naturally with age into prophetic 
inspiration. It was but a few moments that I 
looked upon this picture ; but I shall see it all my 
life-time." 



The life-story has been told — an uneventful story, 
and most inadequately told. Yet it is the best that 
can be gathered out of the obscurity that always 



lxxiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



hangs over the deep things of the human spirit. 
Such a life as that of William James Potter yields 
no material for the romancer or the dramatist, and 
leaves its abiding record chiefly in the lives of 
others, lifted up to higher planes of thought and 
feeling and silently influenced to aim more steadily 
at the "beauty of holiness." Strength and vigor of 
moral character, loveliness of spirit, saintliness of 
life, — undemonstrative yet tireless enthusiasm in 
the cause of soul-freedom and soul-fidelity, un- 
daunted pursuit of pure truth in the face of myriad 
influences in society that tend to tarnish its purity 
and subordinate it to meaner ends, unbounded faith 
in the immanent and ever-active presence of the 
Divine in the human, — in a word, lifelong self-conse- 
cration to truth, righteousness, and love : these were 
the impressions of the man that were left on all who 
came within reach of his shy yet potent influence. 
To the few who were admitted into the sacred 
places of his companionship, veneration and affec- 
tion contended for the mastery. Yet nothing could 
be less mystical or unreal than his participation in 
the commonest affairs of life. Greater than his 
purely speculative capacity was his rare soundness 
of judgment in all practical matters, in which he 
made fewer mistakes than almost any one that could 
be named. It was this quality that made his opin- 
ion weigh so much in his own city, even among 
hard-headed business men ; they saw that he was 
wise in the things of the world, and this gave them 
an instinctive confidence that he was wise in things 
of a higher order. In times of trouble, when ordi- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH IxXV 

nary ambitions lose their hold even on the worldliest 
minds, a soothing and uplifting influence emanated 
from his words and manner, nay, even from his mere 
presence and aspect, which attached to him those 
who could by no means fathom the depths of his 
spirit. Little as he performed the ordinary offices 
of the conventional " pastor," he yet ministered to 
his people in a way that held them to him with 
" hooks of steel," and rendered him their helper, 
comforter, and friend. How sweet and gracious and 
consoling were his sympathies with their sorrows, 
they knew, if strangers knew not ; and the reluc- 
tance with which the long pastorate was at last ended 
tells its own story in these days of swift and fre- 
quent change. Perhaps the secret of his power over 
their hearts is let out, in part, in a letter of his which 
may fitly close this sketch of his life, and show the 
beauty of its sunset. 

41 Mt. Vernon Street, 
Boston, December 9, 1893. 

My dear Friend, — Shortly after you left me 
to-day, your letter was handed in. Though con- 
strained to silence, we understand each other. Our 
hearts are linked together, in this experience of a 
common pain, by the chain of a wordless sympathy. 
Yet I believe I can assure you that it is a part of 
" the All-Love " in the nature of things to soften 
gradually and tenderly the first sharp pangs of such 
pain, and that, too, without benumbing our sensibil- 
ities to the irreparable loss we have sustained. 
With the glorious memory of my wife shining 



1XXV1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

through the fourteen years since she left me, I find 
in the ties of work and affection that remain so 
much of satisfaction and joy, that I cannot now 
quite respond to your expression that " the happiest 
day that awaits either of us on this earth will be 
the day when we leave it forever." Yet I can 
perfectly understand how you, in these desolate 
days of a bereavement so fresh and poignant, should 
feel so. But, dear friend, may you live to understand 
also my present feeling, that life, with all the be- 
reavements behind it, may still have a joy and 
beauty which we shall not be eager to leave .... 

Yours most sincerely, 

Wm. J. Potter. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



lxxvii 



IN THE GRAY STONE CHURCH. 
December 26, 1893. 

Forth went from his dear homestead's doors 

The Reaper-Youth at morn, 
To toil as toiled his ancestors, 

And reap his field of corn. 
All day he labored in the sun 

And bore the heats of noon, 
Nor once forgot the task begun, 

Nor laid his sickle down. 

Back to this dearer home returns 

The Reaper-Man at night, 
And love, exulting while it mourns, 

Bends reverent at the sight. 
He comes, alas, to reap no more, 

But with a wealth of sheaves, 
Where once the field he labored o'er, 

He now his harvest leaves : 

His harvest, not of yellow corn 

Such as his fathers prized, 
But souls to nobler issues born, 

To holier lives baptized, — 
Souls stirred to seek the lofty ends 

Of freedom, wisdom, love, 
And make their own the truth that blends 

The Serpent and the Dove. 

O prophet-preacher, wise and just, 

Pure, gentle, tender, free ! 
Marble is dust and bronze is rust ; 

We build not these to thee. 
Yet one memorial shall remain, 

Long as the seasons roll : 
Thy monument of growing grain, 

Thy harvest of the soul ! 

F. E. A. 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS. 



[Note. — In the following list no attempt has been made to enum- 
erate Mr. Potter's many articles in the Index, to which he was a 
constant contributor, and of which he was for six years (1880-86) 
the editor. He also edited for a number of years the annual 
reports of the Free Religious Association. Many of his sermons 
were printed entire in the New Bedford daily papers from his manu- 
script ; but it has not been found expedient to include them here.] 

Discourse [to the Memory of Mrs. Sarah R. Ar- 
nold, preached Sunday, May 13th, i860. New Bedford, 
i860.] 8vo. pp. 18. 

[The same.] 8vo. pp. 17. 

The Inner Light and Culture. An address de- 
livered before the Alumni Association of Friends' New 
England Yearly Meeting School, at their third annual 
meeting at Newport, 1861. New Bedford, 1861. 8vo. 
pp. 16. 

A Pulpit View of the Business Interests of our 
City. [Discourses preached Jan. 18 and 25, 1863. 
New Bedford, 1863.] Broadsides. 

The Voice of the Draft. [New Bedford, 1863.] 
Broadside. 

This was reprinted in the Army and Navy Official Gazette, Aug. 
11, 1863. (Vol. I., pp. 87-89.) 



lxxx 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 



The National Tragedy. Four sermons delivered 
before the First Congregational Society, New Bedford, 
on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln. New Bed- 
ford, 1865. 8vo. pp. 67. 

A Tribute to the Memory of James Arnold. [New 
Bedford, 1868.] 8vo. pp. iv, 19. 

Reason and Revelation. A discourse. New Bed- 
ford, 1868. i6mo. pp. 22. 

The Doctrine of Pre-existence and the Fourth 
Gospel. Reprinted from the Radical. Boston, 1868. 
8vo. pp. 13. 

Ten Years' Ministry. A sermon preached to the 
First Congregational Society, New Bedford, Jan. 2, 1870. 
[New Bedford, 1870.] 8vo. pp. 13. 

What is Christianity, and What is it to be a 
Christian ? A discourse before the First Congrega- 
tional Society, New Bedford, Dec. 28, 1873. [Reprinted 
from the Index.'] Boston, 1874. i6mo. pp. 21. 

A Discourse on Charles Sumner, delivered at the 
First Congregational Church, New Bedford, March 22, 
1874. [New Bedford, 1874.] 8vo. pp. 6. 

Lessons from the Elections for the Victors and 
the Vanquished. A discourse delivered before the 
First Congregational Church, New Bedford, Nov. 9th, 
1874. New Bedford, 1874. 8vo. pp. 19. 

Some Aspects of Unitarianism in its Past and 
Present History. Two discourses delivered before 
the First Congregational Society, New Bedford, Nov. 
22d and 29th, 1874. New Bedford, 1874. 8vo. pp. 38. 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 



lxxxi 



Christianity and its Definition. In " Freedom 
and Fellowship in Religion." A collection of essays 
and addresses edited by a committee of the Free Relig- 
ious Association. Boston, 1875. pp. 178-221. 

In Memory of Mrs. Caroline Morgan, who died 
April 20, 1883. [New Bedford, 1883.] i6mo. pp. 18. 

Contains address at the funeral service and " The Higher Life,' 
a discourse preached April 29, 1883. 

William H. Allen. [New Bedford, 1883.] i6mo. 
pp. [20.] 

Contains the address made and selections read at the funeral, 
and a portrait and brief life of Mr. Allen. Printed on one side of 
the leaf only. 

Twenty-five Sermons of Twenty-five Years. 
Boston, 1885. 8vo. pp. [x] 417. Portrait. 

The Faiths of Evolution. (Unity Short Tracts, 
No. 6.) [Chicago, 1885 ?] i6mo. pp. 8. 

An extract from the sermon preached on his twenty-fifth anni- 
versary. 

A Completed Life. A discourse preached in the 
Unitarian church, New Bedford, Mass., Oct. 24, 1886, 
as a tribute to the character of Joseph C. Delano. 
[New Bedford, 1886.] 8vo. pp. 20. 

The First Congregational Society in New Bed- 
ford, Mass. Its history as illustrative of ecclesiastical 
evolution. New Bedford, 1889. 8vo. PP- I 5 I - 

Services at the ordination of Paul R. Frothingham as 
associate pastor of the First Congregational Society in 
New Bedford, Mass., Oct. 9, 1889. [New Bedford, 
1890.] 8vo. pp. 31. 

Contains sermon, "Liberty, but Religion also." By William J. 
Potter, senior pastor, pp. 7-30. 



lxxxii 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 



A Noble Motto for the Conduct of Life. A 
memorial discourse [on Dr. G. Felix Matthes], delivered 
in the First Congregational (Unitarian) Church, New 
Bedford, Oct. 20, 1889. New Bedford, 1890. i6mo. 
pp. 18. 

The Late Lesson from our County Court House : 
A Pulpit Trial of the Egg Island Crime. A dis- 
course given in the First Congregational (Unitarian) 
Church in New Bedford, Oct. 25, 1891. [New Bedford, 
1891.] 8vo. pp. 8. 

The Free Religious Association : Its Twenty-five 
Years and their Meaning. An address for the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the Association, at Tremont 
Temple, Boston, May 27th, 1892. Preceded by a brief 
sketch of the annual convention. [Boston, 1892.] 8vo. 
PP- 3i- 

Closing Sermon of William J. Potter, Dec. 25th, 

1892. Opening Sermon of Paul Revere Frothingham, 
Jan. 1 st, 1893. First Congregational Society, New Bed- 
ford, Mass. [New Bedford, 1893.] 8vo. pp. 44. 

Mr. Potter's sermon, " Thirty-three years : Their End a Begin- 
ning." pp. 9-26. 

Sunshine of the Soul, William J. Potter, Dec. 17, 

1893. In the Shadow, Paul Revere Frothingham, 
Dec. 24, 1893. [New Bedford, 1894.] 8vo. pp. 36. 

Mr. Potter's sermon, the last he wrote, pp. 3-20. 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 



lxxxiii 



ARTICLES IN THE RADICAL. 

Ideas and Inspirations. October, 1866. Vol. II. 
PP- 6 5-75- 

Who is our Saviour? February, 1867. Vol. II. 
PP- 347-35 2 - 

The Resurrection of Jesus. May, 1867. Vol. II. 
PP- 55S-57 1 - 

The Doctrine of Pre-existence and the Fourth 
Gospel. April, 1868. Vol. III. pp. 513-525. 

The Doctrine of Divine Incarnation. June, 1868. 
Vol. III. pp. 673-688. 

Christianity and its Definition. February, 1870. 
Vol. VII. pp. 81-108. 

The Doctrine of Immortality in the Light of 
Science. June, 187 1. Vol. VIII. pp. 314-336. 

The New Protestantism : Its Relation to the 
Old. (Discourse before the Alumni of the Divinity 
School of Harvard University, June 27, 187 1.) Sep- 
tember, 187 1. Vol. IX. pp. 105-128. 

ARTICLE IN THE RADICAL REVIEW. 

The Two Traditions, Ecclesiastical and Scien- 
tific. May, 1877. Vol. I. pp. 1-24. 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT IN THE LIGHT 
OF SCIENCE. 



Probably there is no utterance of Hebrew piety 
which has come down to us that would be so gen- 
erally accepted as the very quintessence, in expres- 
sion, of the religious sentiment in one of its pur- 
est and most poetical forms as the Twenty-third 
Psalm, beginning, "The Lord is my shepherd." 
In the midst of perplexities, trials, sorrows, it 
breathes the innermost spirit of trust, confidence, 
serenity, hope, and peace. When we want words 
of comfort and calmness, we inevitably turn to 
it. Its sentences abide easily in the memory with 
a soothing charm. When read in the chamber of 
sickness, they have power to hush the moanings of 
pain. In the house of death they have power to 
subdue into reverent stillness, at least for the 
moment, the complainings of bereaved hearts. 
Over the grave they arch in a rainbow of promise. 
To many a man and oftener to woman, struggling 
to the verge of despair against life's actual hard- 
ships and bitterness, they have come with a 
strengthening of purpose, of courage, and of hope. 
It would be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere else, 
in so small a compass, throughout the whole range 
of religious literature, an utterance so completely 



2 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



covering all the hard exigencies of human life, and 
yet so charged with a confident belief in a ruling 
and overruling Providence for human personal 
good. We shall find the ethical side of religion 
more fully expressed elsewhere, as in the Beati- 
tudes of the New Testament and in certain utter- 
ances of other religions, — as in Marcus Aurelius 
and Seneca and in Buddhism and the writings of 
Confucius and Mencius. We may find heroic 
appeals to religious action in some of the Hebrew 
prophets and in Brahmanism which are of a very 
high order of spiritual nobility, yet they strike a 
different key. But as a poetical expression of the 
religious sentiment per se, in all its fulness, rang- 
ing through the whole gamut of spiritual experi- 
ence in the face of life's problems of good and evil, 
I think that the Twenty-third Psalm must stand 
as the classical masterpiece. 

To the investigating rational understanding of 
the present age, however, clothed with scientific 
authority, there is no Holy of holies too sacred to 
enter. There is no veiled Shechinah from which 
modern reason dares not to lift the curtain; no tra- 
ditional form of the religious sentiment, however 
venerable for its age or closely intertwined with 
the tendrils of the heart's holiest memories, which 
this same reason does not claim the right to ap- 
proach and analyze. And this right must be freely 
granted. A human belief or a human institution, 
even on the theory that they were directly created 
by Almighty Power, cannot in themselves be re- 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



3 



garded as more sacred than the plant or the mineral, 
which we unreservedly give up to science; for, on 
the same theory, the plant and the mineral were 
directly created by the Almighty Power. If the 
latter be a fit subject for scientific investigation, 
why not, then, the former? For one, I can have 
no sympathy with those persons who appear to be 
afraid lest modern rationalism is going to discover 
some disagreeable truth about the religious beliefs 
and usages they have been wont to hold. If it be 
truth, they should want to know it; for nothing 
can be more divine, more absolutely real, than 
that. It is on the presumption that these beliefs 
and usages have been supernaturally revealed as 
true that they have been adhered to. If not true, 
they are not what we have taken them for; and, if 
this be clearly shown by rational and judicial in- 
quiry, we ought to be ready to discard them as 
errors, and not mourn for them as lost truths. 
And we should be thus ready, were it not that we 
often grow to love our own accustomed opinions 
more than we love the truth. When, therefore, 
this modern spirit of rational inquiry approaches 
the holiest shrines of our most cherished senti- 
ments ; when it asks, as it now does, for the reason 
of this or that usage in familiar forms of worship; 
when it studies, as it would other books, the most 
revered oracles of Scripture; when it takes even 
such an exquisite classic of religious literature as 
the Twenty-third Psalm, and, becoming more spe- 
cial and personal in its inquisitions, asks us here, 



4 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



for instance, who may be believers in the scientific 
doctrines of evolution and a natural divine imma- 
nence, and have parted company with the Hebrew 
conception of Jehovah, how we can harmonize with 
such modern beliefs our usage or any usage of the 
old Hebrew words, or how turn for truth or for 
comfort to the lines which picture the Eternal 
Power as the tender shepherd of mankind, — when 
inquiries like these press us, we ought not to evade 
nor blink them as if fearing some dire result, but 
be ready to give a reason for the faith or, if it be 
that, for the non-faith which may be in us. There 
is no result in religious things more dire than that 
intellectual tampering with truth which becomes 
insincerity in utterance and fraud in action. 

Taking, then, such an utterance as the Twenty- 
third Psalm as one of the most noted high-water 
marks in the ancient expression of religious senti- 
ment, what shall we say for it in the light of those 
rational views of religion which the new science of 
this century has been shaping? On the answer to 
this question will depend, perhaps, certain mo- 
mentous issues, — -as whether these new science- 
shaped views of religion will be merely critical, 
or positively and creatively religious. Will they 
remain on the plane of analytical religious philos- 
ophy merely, or will they be capable of nourish- 
ing the impulse to worship? I do not mean neces- 
sarily worship at fixed places and times, but that 
worship which is in spirit and truth and resolute 
noble purpose; and, what is more, will these new 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



5 



scientific views of religion give impulse to that 
consecrated and persistent action which will result 
in the continued moral progress and spiritualiza- 
tion of mankind? On these several and searching 
questions the discourses on the specific portions 
of the Psalm may throw some helpful light. But, 
primarily, the theme has such a large unfolding 
into the whole question of the relation of science 
to sentiment, and of sentiment as an essential 
factor of religion, that a prior consideration of 
these points will be helpful. 

And, first of all, it must of course be borne in 
mind that we are here using the word "sentiment " 
in the sense given by the dictionaries as its first 
and most usual meaning; namely, as that function 
of the human mind which manifests itself in men- 
tal feeling, emotion, or inward sensitiveness to 
impressions from certain ideas or from outward 
things, as distinguished from the ideas themselves 
and from the faculty of mental perception and 
judgment. The term "sentiment," especially in 
the plural form, is sometimes used as a synonyme 
for "opinions," or mental views. But this is not 
a meaning with which we are now dealing. 

A second point to be kept clearly in mind is 
that, when we are considering the present applica- 
bility of any past form of religious expression, 
whether it be an institution or usage, a work of 
art or a piece of literature, we must make a 
broad distinction between the expression of senti- 
ment and the expression of beliefs or opinions. 



6 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



On this distinction the whole question of adapta- 
tion to present use may depend for decision. For 
instance, the Hebrew-Christian Bible is a book 
of the most varied contents and texture. Large 
portions of it purport to be narratives of events, 
historical, biographical, cosmological. Other por- 
tions consist largely of dogmas, opinions, beliefs, 
and ecclesiastical regulations. These dogmas, 
opinions, beliefs, and regulations have to a large 
extent been passed by, outgrown. They belonged 
to their time, but have little use at the present 
time except for material toward a history of human 
beliefs and institutions. And, in every case, the 
question of their truth or error is to be submitted 
to the more enlightened reason of modern times. 
Of the narrative portions a large part has been 
proved to be unhistorical, legendary, mythical ; 
and these parts can have no present use for ethical 
or spiritual profit, except that the legend is often 
morally suggestive. But, again, large portions of 
the Bible consist of religious poetry, prophetic 
preachings, ethical and spiritual precepts, the 
utterances of sage and seer. In these portions 
the religious or moral sentiment is spoken from 
and spoken to. And just in proportion to the 
height and purity of the poetic insight and the 
spiritual vision do these parts keep a permanent 
religious value and take their places as religious 
classics for the spiritual edification of mankind. 
Even in these utterances, beliefs of the time, no 
longer accepted by rational judgment, may mingle; 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



7 



but they occur incidentally only, making a part of 
the setting of the gem, but not the gem itself : 
they are not the chief thing conveyed to our minds 
or touching our hearts. And herein we may find 
the proper rule for discrimination. Where the 
religious sentiment (including the ethical) so pre- 
dominates over beliefs and opinions that it is not 
the latter which chiefly impress us, but the impress 
comes from the sentiment itself, and where that 
sentiment brings to us high solace or ennobling 
inspiration, there we have a Scriptural utterance, 
whether from the Hebrew-Christian Bible or any 
other religious literature, which carries its own 
proof of its continued spiritual value. Applying 
this rule to the Twenty-third Psalm, in my opin- 
ion it would abundantly meet the test. Beliefs 
may change, dogmas be discarded; but in the pur- 
est expressions of the religious sentiment there is 
a reality of truth which never becomes obsolete. 

The correctness of this position with regard to 
the point under discussion is confirmed by noting 
that a similar relation exists between sentiment 
and doctrine, or belief, in other matters where sen- 
timent is the chief ground of appeal. We may 
listen with edification and delight to a fine execu- 
tion of the classical oratorios, though we may not 
accept the theology that inspired them and the 
words of which may still go with them. For 
music is an art which finds and addresses a senti- 
ment which is underneath all words; and, when the 
art rises high enough, it may express that sentiment 



8 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



with such magical enchantment as to cause for the 
time being forgetfulness of the false words it uses. 
So Dante's great poems continue to find charmed 
readers, who discard the theological conceptions 
which his lofty muse used as the framework of her 
subtle art. And this is true of poetry in general. 
It is not necessary that the thought of a poem 
should be strictly modern to keep it alive, if only 
the thought be subordinated to sentiments or to 
certain fundamental principles of conduct which 
have common and perpetual vitality in human ex- 
perience, and these sentiments and principles are 
touched by the wand of genuine poetic genius. 
Even the quaint plantation songs of the Southern 
negroes, with but a fig-leaf of thought and making 
use of the crudest imagery, have often power to 
draw our tears because of the pathos of sentiment 
with which they are charged. Yet, before leaving 
this point, it ought to be added that, when we have 
not only the richness of sentiment and the fine 
artistic genius, but, combined with them in any 
literary or musical composition, a range of ideas 
which are acceptable to our intellects, then there 
is additional gratification, since more of our men- 
tal faculties are addressed. Emerson and Brown- 
ing have been poets who have particularly given to 
their admirers this third pleasure: they have been 
poets of to-day's thought. And not infrequently 
it is their thought which carries along a rough or 
halting verse. Still, it is not the thought which 
will decide the question of their permanence in the 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



9 



galaxy of the world's poets. Here their triumph 
will rest chiefly on the measure in which they have 
expressed imperishable sentiments by a masterful 
poetic genius. 

But we are told to-day, and sometimes by per- 
sons who appear to represent a considerable part of 
the scientific thinking of the day, that sentiment 
itself is out of date and is to be relegated to the 
background of modern activities. So let me say 
a few words on this modern attempt to cast preju- 
dice on sentiment in general. Sentiment is often 
derided as sentimentalism, the design being to cast 
back upon the parent-word the discredit that at- 
taches to its verbal offspring. But the fact that 
a new word was coined to express that vicious ex- 
treme to which sentiment may run when unbal- 
anced by other mental qualities proves rather the 
soundness of the original word and of that function 
of human nature for which it stands. We want to 
repress, of course, sentimentalism, and we want so 
to check and balance sentiment that it shall not 
fall into sentimentalism; but do we want to re- 
press the faculty or function of sentiment itself? 
The faculty of reason does not always use sound 
logic, and sometimes falls into woful mistakes. 
Shall we therefore suppress it? Even conscience 
has gone astray, and committed terrible crimes. 
Shall we therefore discard it in the guidance of 
life? Nature has created in the human mind a 
variety of faculties, each fitted for a special func- 
tion or service; and it seems probable that the 



IO 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



great intent of nature concerning man, and of the 
Power behind nature, will be best fulfilled by a 
well-balanced development and use of all these fac- 
ulties. Hitherto, the history of the world, from 
the very beginnings of history, proves that senti- 
ment has played a most important part in the acts 
of nations and men. It has been the mainspring 
of some of the mightiest institutions and move- 
ments. Even we of this country are but a little 
more than thirty years away from one of the most 
magnificent demonstrations of sentiment on a con- 
tinental scale that the world has ever seen, — the 
popular, Peiitecostal uprising of the North against 
the slaveholders' rebellion, when the national flag 
was shot down. In the white heat of patriotic en- 
thusiasm the iron barriers between churches and 
between political parties were melted away, and 
the North leaped as one man against that final out- 
rage of the slave power. Sentiment needs the vig- 
orous regulation, on the right hand and on the left, 
which is offered by reason and the lessons of expe- 
rience; but it is itself the central impulse in a 
large domain of human action. It is the founder 
of the family and the home. It is the chief sus- 
tainer of moral law. It has been a founder and 
supporter of states as well as religions. 

When, therefore, I hear of schemes for the sup- 
pression of sentiment in human life, I think that a 
task is undertaken a great deal larger than is 
dreamed of, — nothing less, in fact, than a revolu- 
tion against human nature. I know what mighty 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



I I 



power is possessed by moral agitators and re- 
formers. They do sometimes revolutionize society 
and its institutions. But such reformers have a 
powerful sentiment in their philanthropy to spur 
them on. These new apostles to society, whose 
cry is, "Death to Sentiment," cut the very nerve 
of reform effort in the proclamation of their prin- 
ciple. They are not re-formers, but mal-formers. 
Their act, if they could accomplish it, would be a 
species of self-mutilation. Nature, therefore, may 
be trusted, by the pressure of all her vital and pro- 
gressive forces, to resist it as a crime. 

I doubt not that a scientific study of the great 
social problems — the problems of poverty, vice, 
and criminal degradation — will render most valu- 
able aid toward their solution. I doubt not that in 
some respects a genuine social science is going 
to transform all our old methods, particularly in 
making the chief aim to be prevention of misery, 
instead of letting the misery come and then send- 
ing charity — necessarily then for very pity's sake 
— to misery's relief. But, if any think that these 
new scientific methods are to vacate the offices of 
the sentiment of benevolence in the solution of 
these grave problems, they most profoundly err. 
The plea of those critics to whom I have here re- 
ferred is, Let not sentiment interfere to prop up 
the feeble-bodied and the feeble-minded against 
the operation of nature's stern law of struggle, 
with survival of the fittest. But by the natural 
law of evolution itself civilization and humanity 



12 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



have advanced far beyond this sheer animal stage 
of physical struggle for physical existence. The 
ethical and humane sympathies which do interfere 
with that old law of physical struggle and survival 
are among the most eminent signs of the high alti- 
tude to which human life has risen above savage 
and brute conditions of existence. On the human 
plane the survival of the fittest is thus made to 
mean the survival of the best. In fact, the new 
scientific methods of philanthropy will require 
larger and more constant services from personal 
sympathy and benevolent devotion than the old; 
and the best benefit of all methods of dealing with 
vice and misery must always come, not from the 
method itself, but from the personal sentiment of 
genuine neighborly love and helpfulness which the 
men and women who wield the method are able to 
put into it. As to that fastidious frowning on sen- 
timent and on every kind of enthusiasm which ap- 
pears in certain quarters of the fashionable world, 
it deserves scarcely any further criticism than that 
of silent contempt. With the suppression of senti- 
ment, the faculty of thought in these persons seems 
also to have vanished, and nothing has power 
henceforth to disturb the decorous inanities of 
their days. Their characters are too feeble for 
perpetuation, and we need have no concern lest 
they shall revolutionize human nature. Nor need 
we more fear those bolder intellects who venture 
here and there to assert that the marriage institu- 
tion should be taken from its ancient foundation in 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



13 



the sentiment of love, and that the state should 
select partners in marriage according to scientific 
principles of adaptation, and that the state, too, 
should take the children under its tutelage and not 
leave them to be spoiled by parental fondness. 
This theory is not wholly new to human history. 
Ancient Sparta tried it to a very considerable ex- 
tent in both its branches. The theory produced 
a nation of soldiers. But they and Sparta went 
down with the rest of Greece, when that country of 
ancient genius vanished from history. 

We see, therefore, that the great sentiments in 
general, which have moved human nature through 
all its past history, are likely to abide. They may 
be cultivated, improved, but not uprooted; for 
their roots are vital elements of human nature 
itself. 

If this be true of sentiment in general, it is a 
fortiori true of the religious sentiment. Religion, 
as I am accustomed to define it, — seeking a defi- 
nition which shall cover all its specific forms and 
possible phases, — represents man's threefold rela- 
tion, through thought, feeling, and deed, to the 
Universal Power and Life. Feeling, or senti- 
ment, is one of the three essential elements of 
religion, which must always appear when religion 
has its full symmetry of proportions and its full 
measure of legitimate power. Sometimes senti- 
ment has held too exclusive sway, producing a 
religion of emotional ecstasy with the crudest 
thought and very slight ethical perception. Un- 



14 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



balanced by rational thought, disconnected from 
the moral sense and deed, the monstrosity of the 
dervishes' dance and the revival convulsion has 
been called religion. Nevertheless, without senti- 
ment, religious thought may tend to dry dogmas, 
and moral deed be cold and colorless. The senti- 
ment is that which imparts the life-giving, fructi- 
fying, mellowing atmosphere to religion. And it 
is difficult to see how this sentiment should not 
arise, though in very crude form perhaps, as soon 
as the first mental perception of relationship to 
some Power conceived to be supreme had dawned; 
and as difficult, nay, more difficult, to see why the 
sentiment should not continue as a necessary ad- 
junct of all full-sided religious thought, under 
whatever degree of rational enlightenment and 
culture. Just look at the actual conditions a 
moment. Here we are, in organic, vital, present 
relationship with the Eternal Power from which all 
things have proceeded. That Power is the very 
breath of our life. Our consciousness, our affec- 
tions, our aspirations, are phases of its existence. 
Our sense of duty and right is the behest of its 
august presence. Our dispositions to benevolence 
and generosity are the very channels which its love 
has made in our being at our welcoming gesture. 
Yet this Power, so nigh to us, so living in us — 
and this is what Science says — is that same Power 
which has existed from all eternity, creating the 
worlds and all that is in them, and which shapes 
the perfect crystal of the snowflake, clothes itself 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



15 



as beauty in the ripened leaf and in the first flower 
of spring and in myriads of forms, large and small, 
all around us on earth, and studs the heavens with 
gems of stars and planets. Can any human being 
actually think this thought about the Infinite and 
Eternal Power without some uprising of inward 
sentiment? without some emotion both of awe and 
of obligation? Even Science itself, for a moment, 
must hush its debates, cease its researches, and 
bow in reverence before the grandeur of its own 
conception. 

Nor does legitimate Science make any opposi- 
tion to sentiment either in religion or elsewhere. 
Sentiment forms a part of the phenomena which 
make the field of its researches. It is a more diffi- 
cult field than that which is offered in physical 
nature; and Science does not claim that it can 
bring to the region of emotion the same tests 
which it would apply in the chemical laboratory or 
in botanic analysis. It only claims that the scien- 
tific method is to be used, and not the dogmatic; 
that is, the method of accurate research into and 
observation of facts, and then of their classifica- 
tion, and the discovery, if possible, of their law of 
relation. This method is now applied to the study 
of history, of language, and literatures: and there 
is no reason why it should not be applied to all the 
phenomena of religion. For science is simply sys- 
tematized knowledge. But if, on account of the 
reconditeness of the field, Science is as yet unable 
to give a systematic explanation of all the phenom- 



i6 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



ena of the religious sentiment, that failure does 
not invalidate the reality or the useful function of 
the sentiment. The blood circulated in the human 
frame precisely as now before Harvey discovered 
the law of its circulation. So religion and the 
religious sentiment existed for long ages before 
modern science appeared. Science has scattered or 
is scattering the crude explanations of their origin 
which have come down from uncivilized and uncrit- 
ical times. By and by it may clearly show the 
natural motive and law of their development, and 
demonstrate their rational validity. Yet that va- 
lidity will not depend on this discovery and dec- 
laration of Science. Science discovers a law of 
existence, but does not create it. The validity of 
religion is established in the constitution of hu- 
man nature. It is Professor Tyndall who writes: 
"There are many things appertaining to man, over 
and above his understanding, whose respective 
rights are quite as strong as those of the under- 
standing itself." "There are such things woven 
into the texture of man as the feeling of awe, rev- 
erence, wonder; the love of the beautiful, physi- 
cal, and moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There 
is that deep-set feeling which has incorporated 
itself into the religions of the world. To yield 
this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the prob- 
lem of problems at the present hour." And, if I 
recall aright, it is Herbert Spencer who says, still 
more pointedly, in the line of the thought I have 
just been uttering, "The religious sentiment, like 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



17 



the desire for knowledge, is a phase in the energy 
of nature." 

And when we have thus fixed the religious sen- 
timent as correlated with the innermost essence 
of Nature's being, or, in other words, with that 
Reality and Power Eternal which is behind all 
phenomena, material or mental, as their source and 
sustenance, we need entertain no anxious fear lest 
this faculty of human nature, which has been so 
dominant in the past, is now to suffer extinction. 
Let us not believe that, under our rationalistic 
views of religion, the function of religious emotion 
must cease, that its place is vacated to be filled 
by some other faculty. The immediate objects of 
religious sentiment may change from age to age, 
but the sentiment does not thereby cease as a factor 
in human action. 

I have spoken a few pages back of the religious 
sentiment as necessarily including moral sentiment 
when rightly cultivated, and without this combina- 
tion there can be no genuine religion. And this 
necessity has been abundantly proclaimed and em- 
phasized by all the great seers and prophets of 
religion in all faiths, — not always by theologians 
and priests, but by the world's galaxy of immortal 
spiritual teachers. But the fact that the strange 
deformity is not infrequently witnessed of a char- 
acter in which religious sentiment is developed 
strongly and into great demonstrativeness of ex- 
pression, and at the same time conscience in the 
same person is so weak as not to forbid most fla- 



i8 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



grant immoralities, — this abnormal fact has led not 
a few liberal thinkers to question whether religious 
sentiment has any real and permanent value in 
itself. Let me, therefore, call your attention 
somewhat more specially to this point. 

Why, it is asked, make a distinction between 
the religious sentiment and the moral sentiment, 
since we admit, in accordance with the teachings 
of all the greatest religious prophets, that there 
can be no true religion without morality? Or, if 
psychologically there be a distinction, is there any- 
thing in the religious sentiment when it is devel- 
oped by itself apart from morality that is worthy 
of preservation? What is religion apart from 
ethics but a mass of bigotry and superstition? 
Why not, then, reduce religion to what we admit is 
its best evidence and fruit, practical virtue, and, 
saying nothing of the religious sentiment, aim 
directly at that on which there is such general 
agreement? 

Now there is a truth implied in these critical 
questions for which hospitable provision must be 
made in the institutions and practical efforts of 
religion. But, at the same time, the questions do 
not cover the whole of human nature, nor can the 
ethical aim alone permanently satisfy. I cannot 
believe that a correct philosophy either of human 
nature or of religious history will identify religion 
wholly with morality, and, much less, confound the 
religious sentiment with the moral sentiment. It 

o 

is true that religion in its highest and purest 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



19 



form cannot exist without morality, true that the 
religious sentiment, when awakened to its best 
efficiency, must diffuse itself through the moral sen- 
timent, and make the latter one of its most effective 
instrumentalities. Still, religion and morality are 
not the same. Religion, when genuine, includes 
and covers morality, but is more than morality. 
The ethical sentiment is one of the vital elements 
of the religious sentiment, but the religious sen- 
timent has other elements of which the ethical 
sentiment knows nothing. The ethical sentiment 
may be defined as man's feeling of obligation to 
serve the right, and morality is the conduct that 
results from carrying this sense of obligation into 
practice. In other words, it is obedience to con- 
science, or to a rational view of what is best for 
individual and social well-being. But religion is 
something more than this. Even if we say that 
practically religion and morality come to the same 
result, — goodness, — it is goodness as seen from dif- 
ferent outlooks, as reached by different paths, and 
as having a somewhat different quality. Matthew 
Arnold says, "Religion is morality suffused with 
emotion." This indicates the distinction partially, 
but does not wholly cover it unless a very large 
meaning be given to the word "morality," or the 
emotion be more specially defined as to its cause. 
No definition of religion, I think, will satisfy the 
philosophy of the subject which does not in some 
way denote the contact which the finite mind has 
with the vitalizing and sustaining Energy of the 



20 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



universe. It is not necessary that the definition 
should embrace the idea of a personal Deity, not nec- 
essary that it should attempt the impossible prob- 
lem, which most theological systems do attempt, 
of defining the Infinite; but it must, in order to 
cover all the facts, in some way recognize the In- 
finite, — in other words, recognize that the human 
soul is conscious of a life that is not bounded by 
its material organism nor by any limits which itself 
can measure, but opens outward into the whole 
infinity and eternity of things, and is a natural, 
inherent part of the universal order. I should 
define the religious sentiment as man's feeling of 
his connection with the Infinite Life and Order, 
not in any supernatural way, but by the organic 
laws of his being; and religion, as the effort to 
bring his own life into harmony with what he con- 
ceives to be the demands of this higher and larger 
Life. And this rounded religious consciousness is 
not simple, but is a compound of several elements. 
Into it enter the idea of causality, the idea of truth, 
the idea of beauty, the idea of right and goodness. 
Without taking the ground that these ideas are 
innate, or forming any theory as to their origin, it 
is certain that through them the human mind finds 
itself confessing allegiance to a law of life that is 
not of its own creation and not bounded by the 
sphere of its own existence. These perceptions it 
learns to interpret as indicating the purpose and 
law of the Infinite Life, and yields itself to them in 
a joyful endeavor not only to attain harmony and 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



21 



good for one's self but to serve the universal wel- 
fare. This is to be rationally religious. It is to 
do by intelligent choice and free volition what the 
plants do by their structure, — to make a channel 
through which the ceaseless energy may work to 
its ends. But these perceptions thus peering out 
into the world's infinity of mystery and putting us 
into relations with things and forces that are illim- 
itable, these perceptions that necessarily stretch 
back to the sources of all material and mental 
power and downward or upward to the primal 
cause of things, are naturally accompanied by emo- 
tions of awe, of wonder, of reverence, of adoration, 
of expectancy, of fear and hope, of solicitude and 
thanksgiving; and these various emotions, accord- 
ing to the understanding and culture of a people, 
will take shape in the various outward expressions 
of religion. 

We may see now, I think, how it is that the re- 
ligious sentiment, though needing the moral senti- 
ment for its perfect development, may yet, since it 
includes so much more than the moral sentiment, 
be developed vigorously in some directions with- 
out it; and how, under narrow and ignorant views 
of the world and its powers and of man's relation 
to them, the religious sentiment should have often 
developed into crude and superstitious beliefs and 
revolting practices. These beliefs and practices 
vanish away through the influence of better knowl- 
edge and culture; but how the root of the religious 
sentiment itself, which is simply man's feeling of 



22 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



his relations to the Universal Life, is ever to pass 
away so long as man is not self-existent and self- 
derived, but is conscious that his life is related to 
the whole universe of things, I cannot conceive. 
The moral sentiment itself is endowed with a 
grander beauty and a higher majesty when it is 
thus felt to be one of the vital ligaments by which 
human life is connected back with the sources of 
all life, and is commissioned to work out a purpose 
that is not of self nor of time, but is eternal. The 
moral sentiment may, indeed, do its work, and do 
it fairly well, without this consciousness of its 
high descent and dignified destiny. The man may 
simply say, "This is duty, and must be done," 
without any thought as to what duty means in its 
universal relations, without ever inquiring into the 
nature of the pressure behind that little word 
"ought," which gives its authoritative power. 
When he acts thus, he is simply moral. But when 
to any person the consciousness comes, whether it 
shape itself into any formal belief or not, that, 
through this sense of "I ought," the eternal pur- 
pose of the universe presses to accomplish its high 
ends, and that he is agent of a power and purpose 
immeasurably grander than his own aims or his 
life even, then he becomes religious. Then he 
feels that the will of the universe is at his back. 
He becomes the subject of superb inspirations and 
courage and of high heroisms in action. He 
treads the earth as a master, holding a sovereign 
hand over its destinies, under the Eternal. 



IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE 



23 



That this powerful sentiment is ever to abdicate 
its office I cannot believe. That it needs to be 
lifted to the full loftiness of its functions by en- 
lightenment and culture, removing its abnormal 
excrescences, I concede and plead for. But human 
nature is not to be bereaved by its death. The 
power that built the wonderful cathedrals of the 
Middle Ages has not vanished nor abated aught of 
its marvellous and magical capacity, if to-day, in- 
stead of cathedrals of stone, it builds its visions of 
harmony, grandeur, and beauty, its wide hospitali- 
ties and generous sweep of human sympathies, into 
the characters of living men and women. The 
power which once set in motion the crusades might 
not be able to raise the smallest army for a like 
object to-day; but it is not exhausted so long as it 
summons men and women to nobler heroisms and 
purer causes. Guided by reason and the moral 
sense, pervaded and regulated by a wise culture, 
religious sentiment may be an element in human 
nature and life as vitally creative to-day as it has 
ever been in the past. When poetry shall die out 
of the human soul ; when man shall cease to be 
moved by any of the sublime spectacles in nature; 
when his heart shall no more be entranced by ex- 
hibitions of heroic virtue; when truth shall no 
longer attract his admiring mind; when all visions 
of ideal excellence shall fade away from his eager 
eyes, and he shall no longer stand erect, with eyes 
lifted upward and forward toward the longed-for 
light of the better day to come; when the great 



2 4 



RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 



mystery of Being, in which man lives and moves 
and has his being, shall have no power to stir a 
thought or a feeling within him, — in short, when 
he shall be no longer man, then, but not till then, 
will religious sentiment become a dead faculty in 
his nature. But so long as man remains a being 
capable of feeling the power of truth, goodness, 
beauty, and he is conscious of an inevitable mental 
attraction, in however vague way, to some deeper 
Reality which may be their eternal source and 
unity, — in fine, so long as man stays man, the re- 
ligious sentiment must stay as a vital part of him; 
for it is the veritable life of ages pulsing in his 
consciousness, thrilling his organism with a sense 
of the majesty of its eternal purpose and law, and 
with a measure of its supreme calmness and joy. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

I. 

THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD. 

" The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want." 

The Twenty-third Psalm as a whole is a spe- 
cially fine antique expression of religion; and in 
this series of lectures we are to consider the ques- 
tion, What does this pious utterance mean for us 
to-day, in view of the most enlightened and scien- 
tific ideas of religion which the nineteenth century 
has been furnishing? The Psalm divides naturally 
by its six verses, each of them presenting a special 
phase of the relation between religious sentiment 
and religious thinking. Hence the general theme 
will divide easily into six discourses, each with its 
specific form of the question just stated. 

But before I proceed to the particular verse, the 
opening one, which will occupy our attention 
to-day, let me make two or three brief prefatory 
statements applicable to the Psalm as a whole. 

First, the question of the date and authorship of 
the Psalm is of little or no account, as concerns 
our present purpose. The application of the mod- 



26 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



ern method of scientific investigation to Biblical 
literature makes it one of the assured results of 
criticism that most of the Psalms attributed to 
David, and this among the number, must have had 
a later origin. And, for myself, I should prefer to 
believe that the picture of idyllic innocence and 
serene moral confidence which we have in the 
Twenty-third Psalm did not have for its author a 
man of so many villanies and crimes as are re- 
corded against King David. But in these lectures 
we are to consider the Psalm for what it is in it- 
self, without reference to its origin, except that we 
know that it belongs to the ancient Hebrew litera- 
ture. Second, the Psalm presents, in an excep- 
tionally pure and exalted form, an expression of 
the religious sentiment, an expression vivid with 
local and national coloring; yet its few sentences 

— for it is among the briefest of the Psalms — are 
so free from antiquated dogmas that there is noth- 
ing in it which must needs offend modern rational- 
istic thought when it is remembered that the 
whole form of the utterance is poetical. It is 
poetry of the religious sentiment with which we 
are here dealing, and not with theological prose, 

— with pictures and metaphors of the ideal realm 
of the imagination, not with logical syllogisms. 
Third, the common English version of the Psalm 
has become so fixed in the memories of people and 
so embedded with their strongest religious associa- 
tions that I shall use it in preference to a more 
literal rendering, pointing out, however, when we 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



2/ 



come to them, the places where an exacter mean- 
ing might be given by a different version. The 
revised version of the Old Testament only ventures 
a change in two words in this Psalm, and those 
so slight as to be hardly noticeable. Of other 
changes which a more exact conformity to the 
original might require, I will add that they would 
not, as in some other Biblical passages, detract 
from the spiritual beauty and significance of the 
sentiment, but, rather, enrich it. 

And now I ask you to consider with me the first 
verse of this little Hebrew poem of religious confi- 
dence and hope, querying with ourselves thought- 
fully what it can mean for us. 

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want"; 
so we read or repeat the words from our Bibles, 
and always, I think, with a tender reverence. But 
do we recall them merely for their tender senti- 
ment, expressed by a picturesque poetic metaphor? 
Or do the words still stand for some very real truth 
to us, of which they have power to excite a vivid 
feeling? We are to remember that religious senti- 
ment, like sentiment in general, has two quite dis- 
tinct phases. A noble work of art, for instance, — 
a great poem, a great piece of music, — may affect 
us to the point of enthusiastic admiration and inci- 
dentally touch even deeper feelings simply through 
its high artistic power, irrespective of the ideas it 
was meant to convey; the ideas in such cases are 
merely a skeleton, which sentiment covers with its 
own forms of" beauty and life. But, if the ideas 



28 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



and the excellence of the art both are able to strike 
responsive chords in our mental organism, then we 
have a correspondingly larger satisfaction. And 
this unity in an enlarged result is especially im- 
portant in religious usage. Without it we may 
have the piety of an aesthetic ritualism and the 
cherished associations of traditional and liturgical 
forms of worship, but not that profoundest reality 
of worship which is in spirit and in truth. And 
this phrase, "in spirit and in truth," well ex- 
presses the desired combination of sentiment and 
thought which should be sought in religion as a 
preserver of sincerity. There is a mental percep- 
tion of truth which is one of the characteristics of 
the understanding, or the reasoning faculty; but 
there is also a feeling of truth, which is the func- 
tion of sentiment in its highest form. And this 
feeling of truth is a phase of sentiment which 
means a great deal more for man's nobler culture 
than can be wrought by any amount of emotion 
excited by a rare achievement in the forms of art 
merely, or by a tender affection for the beautiful 
in poetical expression. 

So again I ask, when we repeat the old words, 
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want," do 
we cherish them simply for their poetic beauty and 
their venerable antiquity, or do we have a feeling 
of their truth? Here, in this first verse, the key- 
note of the Psalm is struck in the pastoral meta- 
phor wherein Jehovah is pictured as shepherd; and 
the note is carried through to the end, in all the 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



2 9 



succeeding imagery, even though the metaphor is 
abruptly changed just before the close. If this 
first note does not ring true for us, then there must 
be for us falsity all through; beautiful words, 
but not, for us, the beautiful thought! Perhaps 
some critic may say that, however forcible this 
picture of Jehovah may have been to the primitive 
Oriental people among whom it was uttered so 
many centuries ago, and where one of the chief 
occupations of life was the care of flocks and herds, 
it can have little significance to the civilized na- 
tions of the earth in this nineteenth century. To 
the Hebrew, indeed, who was wont to conceive of 
Jehovah as a mighty monarch, a God of hosts and 
of battles, a leader of armies against the national 
enemies, a thunderer in the heavens, and a sender 
of plagues and of pestilence, in his displeasure, 
upon the earth, it must have been a comforting 
relief to listen to this confident description of 
the same supreme sovereign as a wise and tender 
shepherd personally leading his flock and supervis- 
ing and securing the highest felicity of each one. 
But, our critic asks, are not both of these concep- 
tions, that of the mighty monarch who was the 
leader of armies, and that of the tender shepherd 
who was the leader of flocks, equally obsolete as 
descriptions of Deity to-day? 

Other critics may dispute the facts stated in the 
verse, as at variance with human experience. 
Could the starving Russians last year, it is asked, 
believe in a Deity who was a Shepherd to them 



3Q 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



and would not suffer them to want? The Russian 
peasants have been taught that the czar himself, as 
head of the church, is God's vicegerent on earth, 
having supreme power. Yet they found him able 
in their dire famine to lead them into no green 
pastures of plenty and refreshment. Or what truth 
was there in this sentiment, "The Lord is my 
Shepherd; he will take care of me; I shall not 
want," for those thousands of victims of the late 
earthquakes in Japan and Zante? or for those 
suffering and slaughtered by the recent rage of tor- 
nado and tide in Louisiana and on the South 
Atlantic coast? or for the hungry and famishing 
ones who, thrown out of employment, may be 
found in most of our large cities to-day, those 
who know not to-night where to-morrow's bread is 
coming from, and whose natural "want" of food is 
seldom on any day fully satisfied? Can any of 
these classes of people repeat with truth the pious 
phrase, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not 
want " ? 

Yet such objections, it must be replied first, 
could just as legitimately be made in the Hebrew 
singer's own time. As to the first of these sup- 
posed querists, — and they are not merely imagi- 
nary persons, but represent real objectors to the 
conception of Deity as a Shepherd of the human 
race, — the first of our critics is treating this Psalm 
as if it were intended as a philosophical or meta- 
physical conception of Deity, whereas it is poetry, 
and not theology; and poetry, if genuine and lofty, 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



31 



never becomes obsolete. The Psalmists, whoever 
they were and whenever they wrote, were not logi- 
cians nor scientists: they were simply religious 
poets. Of science there was then nothing bearing 
that name in the modern sense. Nor were these 
writers engaged in producing such works as Cal- 
vin's "Institutes" or Barclay's "Apology." They 
had no concern with the metaphysical problems of 
religion which taxed the powers of those eminent 
logicians, and would not probably have appreciated 
those famous treatises even so well as you and I 
can. Our Psalmist was simply a poetical observer 
of nature and human life from a religious point of 
view, and then he put what he saw and felt into 
song. He would have made no insistence on the 
conception of Supreme Being as a Shepherd, as if 
that were a description of Deity excluding all 
others. On the contrary, he turned readily from 
one metaphor to another, according as he viewed 
for the time being one aspect or another of man's 
relations to the mysterious infinity of the world- 
forces. Now Jehovah was the tender Shepherd; 
but anon the same pen might characterize him 
as man's Fortress, his Rock, his King, his 
high Tower, his Sun and Shield, his Light, his 
Life, his Savior, Father, Law-giver, and Judge. 
Writers who employ in their work such picturesque 
conceptions and descriptions as these are no more 
to be judged by the rules of prose and logic than is 
Longfellow's poem of "The Building of the Ship," 
with its closing application to the "Ship of State," 



32 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



to be submitted to the same standards of criticism 
as the Federalist or the Constitution of the 
United States. The close of this poem, indeed, 
with its felicitous expression of ideal hopes and 
prophecies for the union of the States against 
actual inimical assaults and threatened perils and 
death, may be taken as a happy illustration, from 
our own time, of just what the poetical conception 
of Jehovah as their Shepherd meant for the He- 
brews in the midst of their national troubles. 

For, again, those commentators err who imagine 
that the writer of "the Lord my Shepherd" must 
have written out of the provincial experience of an 
idyllic pastoral life, and knew nothing of the ter- 
rific evils against which the human race as a 
whole has to struggle, evils which, these objectors 
think, overthrow the theory of a shepherding Provi- 
dence. On the contrary, the Hebrews had experi- 
mental acquaintance with nearly every form of 
human woe. They were aggressive and ambitious 
as a nation. At first they were a group of discon- 
tented wandering tribes seeking a better domain 
for their homes, better pasturage for their flocks. 
They were, in consequence, almost continually at 
war with their neighbors. They became divided, 
too, into warring factions among themselves. 
There were rival and fighting claimants for the 
throne, with the customary Oriental incidents of 
intestine intrigues, strifes, assassinations. There 
were seasons of famine and pestilence. Nature, 
with all her friendliness, was not always friendly. 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 33 

Her pitiless bitterness was a familiar foe. In the 
reign of King David himself, the reputed writer of 
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want," 
there was a fearful plague and a famine of three 
years, when David ordered some of the chief of his 
domestic enemies to be killed, as a sacrifice to ap- 
pease the wrath of Jehovah, who was believed to 
have sent this calamity upon his people for their 
sins. Later the nation was conquered, scattered, 
carried into captivity. Yet, through all and after 
all, the national prophets and poets did not cease 
to preach and sing — in full confidence, in order to 
nerve the national heart and will — their ideal faith 
and hope in Jehovah as a good Shepherd, who 
would lead his flock out of bondage and want into 
plenty and peace. 

It is evident, therefore, that even originally this 
conception of Jehovah as a Shepherd had for its 
germ a faith, a thought, which went below the su- 
perficial appearances of events, and was rooted in 
some deeper reality than outward prosperity and 
contentment. Mere freedom from calamity and 
suffering, — this was not what the wise, devout 
Hebrew meant when he sang of Jehovah his Shep- 
herd. This might come as a consequence, but it 
was not the essential thing which in his inmost 
heart he craved. There he touched a measurement 
of want and of weal, in which purely outward 
treasures and pleasures, however much he valued 
them, did not count. The Psalmist was not a phi- 
losopher, like Socrates; yet he approached in this 



34 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



thought the wise Greek's prayer: "0 all ye gods, 
grant me to be beautiful in soul ; and may all 
that I possess of outward things be in harmony 
with those within." Nor did the Psalmist have 
the stoical nature of the Roman Epictetus; yet, 
though his hope was more buoyant and childlike 
than that of Rome's slave-philosopher, it was kin- 
dred in spirit to that confidence with which Epic- 
tetus declared his faith toward Zeus: "Though he 
set me before mankind poor, powerless, sick; ban- 
ish me, lead me to prison, — shall I think that he 
hates me? Heaven forbid! . . . Nor that he neg- 
lects me; but to exercise me and to make use of 
me as a witness to others." And it was in one of 
the Hebrew books, by an author who was a phi- 
losopher as well as poet, — the Book of Job, — 
that this expression of implicit confidence in Deity 
reaches the climax of depreciation and sacrifice as 
to the things ordinarily regarded as necessary for 
the satisfaction of human wants. Out of the midst 
-of his afflictions Job says to his vain counsellors, 
"Though the Almighty slay me, yet will I trust in 
him." 

There is no occasion, then, to believe that, when 
the Hebrew thought of Jehovah as a Shepherd, he 
necessarily expected a cosseting care for individ- 
ual human souls, which would save them from all 
pains, anxieties, trials, and personal efforts for 
themselves. This "Lord my Shepherd" Psalm 
itself contradicts such an idea. It speaks of 
dangers, terrors, darkness, enemies, to be encoun- 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



^5 



tered. Nor would the metaphor of the office of 
shepherd, drawn from the writer's personal knowl- 
edge or experience, convey the idea of escape from 
all encounter with the hazards and perils of life. 
The Hebrew shepherds at their best did not protect 
their flocks against all unhappiness. They could 
not make the grass to grow wherever they wished. 
The way to the green pastures was sometimes 
long and wearying. The refreshing fountains were 
sometimes dried. Violent assaults could not 
always be warded off. And once every year the 
shepherd himself led his flocks to the shearers' 
hands. And any one who has seen the plaintive 
pathos of entreaty on the face of a sheep under the 
shears, tied against struggling, and even though, 
according to the Scripture, dumb, will know that 
the operation to the poor creature is no pleasant 
experience, however needful it may be for man- 
kind. The good shepherd was wise and tender, 
but his wisdom and tenderness had their limita- 
tions; and these limiting conditions the flocks 
could not always readily distinguish from hardness 
and cruelty. So, though Jehovah was believed to 
be a being of infinite wisdom and tenderness, the 
Hebrew devoutly acknowledged that his ways of 
showing his wisdom and kindness in the leadership 
of Israel might often be beyond the limits of man's 
vision and knowledge. Nevertheless, despite all 
apparent aberrations and delinquencies, he still 
trusted the divine leadership; and this was the 
highest test of the loyalty of Hebrew faith. 



36 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

We are now prepared to see what were the essen- 
tial elements of the Psalmist's conception of Je- 
hovah as Shepherd. There are only two of them, 
but two which to him covered the whole infinity 
of the character of the Hebrews' Deity, however 
variously they described him by other forms of 
speech. The first of these elements will be made 
conspicuous at once by a more exact rendering of 
the leading word of the Psalm. Let us translate it 
thus: "The Eternal is my Shepherd." The word 
which is translated as " Lord " in the common 
version is the Hebrew word "Jehovah," more cor- 
rectly, " Yahweh," and its literal meaning is "eter- 
nal existence." "I am that I am" is a Script- 
ural paraphrase of its meaning. Here was indi- 
cated the Being of all beings, Power of all powers, 
the mystery of supreme existence prior to and 
penetrating all finite existences. "The Eternal" 
appears to be as good an English phrase for the 
idea as any that can be found of equal brevity. 
And what the Hebrew meant was that, amidst all 
that was transitory, finite, changeable, perishable, 
confused, and uncertain in human affairs, there 
was an Eternal Power as leader, a Power working 
through and over all for some sublime and lasting 
end of its own. This is the first essential element 
of the Psalmist's conception of Deity as a Shep- 
herd, or Leader, of his people. And the second 
element is that this leadership is accomplished and 
the sublime end of the Eternal reached through the 
law of righteousness. The devout Hebrew believed 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



37 



that the Eternal was himself the author and giver 
of the law of righteousness, and that amidst and 
despite all the moral disloyalty and disobedience, 
all the vices and wickedness and crimes and calam- 
ities of the Hebrew people, the Eternal would turn 
and overturn, check and punish, until Israel was 
established in righteousness; and that the prosper- 
ity and peace which the nation dreamed of as its 
ideal destiny could only be attained through the 
people's learning and keeping the ways of right- 
eousness. 

These, let me repeat, were the two essential 
facts to which the Hebrew held in his metaphori- 
cal description of Jehovah as Shepherd: first, the 
Eternal, through all change and transitoriness, is 
man's leader; second, the road of leadership is up 
the ways of righteousness, to safety, felicity, and 
peace. The Eternal Power that maketh for right- 
eousness — to adopt essentially Matthew Arnold's 
oft-quoted phraseology — expresses well the He- 
brew conception of Jehovah in its inner signifi- 
cance. 

And now I ask whether the intervening centuries 
have rendered these two declarations obsolete and 
nugatory? Has the nineteenth century taken us 
past them? Have we any science that has contro- 
verted them? Is there any philosophy of the uni- 
verse that does not use these two ideas, in some 
shape, for corner-stones? Is there any rational 
and ethical, not to say religious, action of man 
that does not in some way involve them ? 



38 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



Of course, the Hebrew gave other distinctive at- 
tributes to his Deity, generally clothing him with 
very anthropomorphic qualities and features, and 
representing him as personally and miraculously 
overseeing and arranging all the affairs of individ- 
ual human lives. In this region we should cer- 
tainly find many dogmas which have been outgrown 
and abandoned, many opinions which to-day's sci- 
ence and reason would deny. But these beliefs 
were merely subsidiary to the two points of faith 
just named and in no wise essential conditions of 
their soundness, and in the Psalm of the Eternal 
as our Shepherd these merely temporary beliefs 
have little place. In that poetic utterance, only 
those two central points of Hebrew faith — the 
Eternal as leader, and a leader Righteous and 
Good — are prominent. 

What, then, does the rational and scientific 
thought of modern times have to say on these two 
points of the Hebrew faith in Jehovah as a Shep- 
herd? On the first point, as soon as we give the 
literal translation, " The Eternal is my Shepherd," 
there comes at once to view a remarkable parallel- 
ism. "The Eternal" we may almost say is the 
phrase of science. Eternal power, eternal energy 
or force, eternal existence, — these are all expres- 
sions to represent that something, that original, 
uncreated, and unevolved substance of being which 
all science and all discussions about the universe 
have to assume as the basis of all phenomena. 
There is no blankest atheism, no form of philo- 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



39 



sophical materialism, which does not admit the 
existence of such a power. The great scientific 
doctrine of evolution, which is revolutionizing so 
many theories of philosophy and religion, demands 
an eternal evolving force or agency. Herbert 
Spencer, the prince of agnostics, calls it the 
"Ultimate Reality," and, more descriptive still, 
"an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all 
things proceed." This is "the Eternal" of the 
Hebrew, the very meaning of the word "Jehovah," 
the "I am that I am." These are all names or 
phrases demanded in the name of science or even 
of the crudest reasoning faculty for that primal 
Reality without which nothing that we see, or 
know, or that anywhere exists, could ever have 
been. When Spencer calls it "an Infinite and 
Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed," 
he describes it in the bare prose of scientific state- 
ment. Yet, when he speaks of man as ever, by an 
absolute certainty, in the presence of the mystery 
of this Infinite and Eternal Energy, we begin to 
have, even when thus expressed with logical bare- 
ness, that feeling of its truth which approaches 
religion. Now, add to the same thought the sen- 
timent of poetry in the expression of it, with no 
added attribute of character whatever, and we have 
Wordsworth's 

" Sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air 



40 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, — 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things." 

This is only "the Infinite and Eternal Energy, 
from which all things proceed," depicted with no 
conscious intelligence nor purpose, but only as 
universal motive power; yet, in the guise of poetic 
sentiment, the conception rises into the realm of 
religion. 

But the Hebrew poet went further. In describ- 
ing God under the phrase "my Shepherd," he de- 
picted the Eternal Energy as acting with intelli- 
gence and a good purpose. He meant to declare 
that the Eternal Power was to be trusted to guide 
man through all trials and perplexities to the 
happiest results, because it was united with attri- 
butes of infinite Wisdom and Righteousness. Can 
we say that modern scientific and philosophical 
thought as confidently indorses this second point of 
Hebrew faith as it indorses the first? Frankly we 
must admit that as yet it does not. Science here 
becomes agnostic. For settling questions of infi- 
nite personality and of an eternal, conscious, pur- 
posive intelligence apart from finite intelligence, 
scientists, for the most part, declare that they have 
no data. If they believe that the Eternal has 
these attributes, they will say they hold their 
belief on other than strictly scientific grounds. 
Philosophy, too, is hesitating, uncertain, and vari- 
ant in its voices on these intricate problems; and 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



41 



even theology, once claiming that here was her 
special field of revelation, has lost a good deal 
of her old positiveness, has become apologetic. 
What shall we say, then? Is the Eternal merely 
blind, unintelligent power with no moral aim, no 
purpose wise and beneficent in its scope? If so, 
then we must part company with the Psalmist's 
thought of the Eternal as our Shepherd; and 
we may as well let the pretty sentiment of it go, 
too, if we cannot with mental integrity keep the 
thought. But, for one, I believe that we may ra- 
tionally hold to the thought that the Eternal Power 
shepherds mankind and all creatures. 

For proof of this belief I am not going into any 
questions, subtle and metaphysical, concerning In- 
finite Personality and Eternal Conscious Intelli- 
gence. I am ready to accept such beliefs as 
philosophical inferences, provided that I am not 
required to define these alleged attributes of Abso- 
lute Being too closely by their human and finite 
counterparts. But for proof of my belief in a wise 
and beneficent activity interfused with Eternal 
Power I do not begin at the infinite side of the 
universe. I begin just where science begins, — 
among finite things. Leave, if you please, for the 
moment at least, infinite intelligence out of 
account; and begin with the lowest terms of ra- 
tional knowledge. What then? We find, first, 
that the world in all its knowable parts and opera- 
tions is an intelligible world, part adapted to part 
and force adjusted to force, in an order and har- 



42 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



mony productive of certain results, upon which our 
intelligence can certainly calculate. Were the 
world a mere medley of aimless forces, operating 
by chance and whim and at cross-purposes, human 
beings could not with all their intelligence adjust 
themselves to it, and life would become impossi- 
ble. That the world is intelligible gives us all the 
effects and benefits of purpose and aim and law, 
whether we affirm or not an infinite conscious intel- 
ligence pervading and governing it. And in all 
practical accomplishment of the ends of his exist- 
ence it is vastly more important for man rationally 
to adjust himself to a world of intelligible forces, 
laws, and activities than to try to conceive and 
adore a being of infinite intelligence in a vague 
somewhere above the universe. And, second, we 
find the known and knowable universe to be not 
only intelligible, but to be subject in its own 
activities and unfoldings to amelioration. It is an 
improvable universe. There is a mounting from 
low and crude forms of life to something higher 
and better. The very power of life itself tends to 
eliminate the evil, which resists its aims and 
destiny. That is the very meaning of evil, — re- 
sistance to the power and aim of life. Hence the 
law of life is from bad to good, and from good to 
better and Best; that is, ever toward fairer and 
nobler forms and organisms of life. And man, 
through his rational and moral consciousness and 
his consequent intelligent purpose and moral en- 
deavor, is made a helper in this ameliorating and 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



43 



ascending process. Nothing is better established 
by the evidence of history than that the Law of 
Righteousness greatens in its authority and in its 
results both in respect to nations and individuals 
with the lapse of centuries. But, third, accord- 
ing to the doctrine of evolution it is the Eternal 
Power itself that is actively and organically mani- 
fest in the intelligible order, law, harmony of the 
world-forces, and in all the meliorating and as- 
cending activities of those forces, and in the mind 
and heart, in the moral will and righteous deed of 
man. And, consequently, all this ascent which is 
open to us human beings into larger and richer 
realms of life above mere material existence, and 
the very impulse toward the ascent, as also that 
inward faculty of adjustment to circumstances, 
whether they seem favorable or unfavorable, so as 
to turn them into some kind of benefit, — all these 
dominant factors in the conduct of life we owe to 
the actual leadership of the Power Eternal. There- 
fore, I can say the Eternal is my Shepherd. And, 
with this present fact underneath me and express- 
ing the innermost reality and meaning of my exist- 
ence to-day, I have as little interest to prove as to 
deny that in the primeval eras, before the first 
whirl in the fire-mist whence our solar universe 
had its origin, this Eternal Power must have 
existed in a personal entity together with Infinite 
Wisdom and Infinite Beneficence. There you carry 
me off to a distant metaphysical question. It may 
have an interest for the logician, but I prefer to 



44 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



stay with present facts. It suffices me to know that 
the Eternal Power is now organized in the law, 
order, harmony, beauty, purpose, adaptation of force 
to benefit, and ever-ascending life and increasing 
righteousness of this world which I inhabit, and 
where I, too, am called to some harmonious service 
for the enlargement of its well-being. It is thus 
that the Eternal shepherds mankind and all creat- 
ures, — through the law of mutual and gradually 
lifting service. The shepherding function is no 
police supervision from the skies, but is organized 
in the very laws and forces and movements of nature 
and humanity. Hence the Eternal shepherds man 
in a higher way than the flocks of the field are 
shepherded, man being more largely endowed 
with the function of being a providence unto him- 
self, adjusting himself to his changing environment 
and converting his very trials and misfortunes into 
spiritual and moral wealth. The Eternal Power, 
too, is creative of new and higher wants as the 
creatures ascend in organism and breadth of life; 
but along with the wants goes ample provision for 
their supply. "Demand and supply" is one of 
nature's primal laws. Dr. Holmes, in his poem of 
"The Chambered Nautilus," touches both the ante- 
human and the human forms of this organic amel- 
ioration. In the nautilus 

" Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil ; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past j^ear's dwelling for the new, 



THE ETERNAL OUR SHEPHERD 



45 



Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home and knew the old no more." 

But 

" Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." 

So to this mystic, creative, ameliorating power 
of the Eternal I bow in reverence, to adhere to it 
and work with it in trust and love. It comes to 
me, bending under a past eternity of accumulated 
wisdom and beneficence, which it offers to me for 
the serving and refining of my wants. At my co- 
operating gesture toward it flow supplies from in- 
finite reservoirs. I know that, if I am disloyal to 
it and disregard its behests, even though all the 
wants of my flesh may be satisfied and I may be 
rich in many things called wealth, I shall yet be 
poor in manhood and bereft in soul. But if I 
loyally follow and obey it, whatever other treasures 
and pleasures I may lose, I shall be possessed of 
all things most worthy of human attainment. In 
this Power Eternal is man's highest Friend, his 
Shepherd, his King, his God. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



II. 

GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 

" He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me 
beside the still waters." 

In approaching the lesson that is couched in this 
refined luxury of poetic words, it will be helpful to 
bear in mind certain points of last Sunday's lecture 
on the Eternal our Shepherd. The first two verses 
of the Psalm have a peculiarly close connection. 
The writer evidently meant to intimate how im- 
possible it is that the Shepherd should allow his 
flocks to suffer want, with such satiety of supply at 
hand in meadow and stream for all hunger and 
thirst. Hence, lest we go astray with the idea 
that the Hebrew poet was thinking only of a cos- 
seting Providence that should shield the human 
race from all possible harms, and shelter it safe 
from the necessity of rugged disciplines, let us 
recall from last Sunday's discussion these conclu- 
sions : — 

First, the Eternal shepherds mankind, not by 
miraculous displays of sovereign care, but through 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 47 

the fact that the Eternal Power is organized in the 
ordinary productive forces of nature and in the nat- 
ural human faculties. The Eternal, indeed, leads 
us, but does it through the inward constraining 
force of reason and conscience, and the sentiments 
of affection, honor, and benevolence. Second, the 
goal of this leadership is attained through an edu- 
cational process whereby human life is gradually 
adjusted to the great world-energies. This process 
of adjustment means that the Eternal Power which 
is organized in man as mental and moral perception 
and as rational and moral motive for action, places 
itself in vital relationship of practical concord with 
the Eternal Power that is organized in the vast 
energies of the universe outside of man; and hence 
man derives for his finite existence and purpose 
sustaining supplies from that infinite bounty. 
Third, the conditions of this educational process 
of adjustment by their very nature do not admit 
that man shall be provided for by a fondling 
supreme care, without effort or thought of his own 
to meet his wants; but rather they necessitate the 
putting forth of human faculty in a strenuous 
struggle with problems of difficulty, in order to 
attain the higher ends and satisfactions of human 
destiny. Fourth, in this educational process of 
adjustment, moreover, human wants themselves 
are enlarged, elevated, and spiritualized. They 
emerge from material wants and blossom into wants 
of a mental and moral nature, and material wants 
are refined from their merely animal grossness and 



4 8 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



made subordinate to nobler demands of reason and 
moral right. The wants of a tribe of Hottentot 
Indians are very different from the wants of any 
ordinary community of citizens in Massachusetts. 
And again, the wants of such a soul as Fenelon, 
or Epictetus, or Emerson, or Elizabeth Fry, or 
Clara Barton are not only far removed from the 
wants of a Congo negro, but almost as far removed 
from the dominant wants of many a person called 
civilized and who may live in the luxury of riches 
at the very acme of modern civilization, yet who 
lives chiefly for gratifying the propensity of covet- 
ousness and the passions of the flesh. It does not 
follow, therefore, because all our actual wants may 
appear to be satisfied, that it is the Eternal who is 
always leading us to their gratification. We may 
be under the lead of merely temporal desires and 
appetites. Man is subject to diseased, abnormal, 
and rebellious wants, which actually work against 
the Eternal purpose; and he is only led away from 
them to higher satisfactions, through disciplines 
of pain and retribution. 

These points were all stated or implied in the 
previous lecture, and they have a direct bearing on 
our thought to-day. 

For what kind of wants or satisfactions did 
the Hebrew poet mean to symbolize under the pict- 
ure of nature's luxuriance of green pastures and 
still waters? Plainly here was something more 
than merely feeding and drinking, something be- 
yond the bare necessities of existence, a sugges- 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 49 

tion of other than physical hungers and thirst to 
be satisfied, — a suggestion of ideal wants as well 
as the gratification of actual wants. The green 
pastures and still waters are beyond all the needs 
of present hungers and thirsts. The flocks are to 
lie down in the midst of this beautiful, bountiful 
greenness; and the Hebrew phrase for "still 
waters " is rendered, by one of the most literal 
translators, into "well-watered resting-places." 
The Hebrew phrase does, indeed, carry a finer, 
fuller idea even than that of "still waters." It 
means "waters of restful quietness." The eager 
appetites of the flocks are depicted as already ap- 
peased. The scramble for food is over. The tir- 
ing, dusty, hot journey to the pastures has had its 
reward. The flocks can now rest at ease on the lap 
of Nature's bounty. The grass from which they 
have fed offers a bed deliciously soft and fragrant. 
The air they breathe is sweet with the breath of 
the still waters, and invites their senses to repose. 
With such abundance close at hand, they can have 
no anxieties for the future. The Shepherd has led 
them to the very sources of Nature's plenty, and 
they are at peace. 

But now consider for a moment the times and 
circumstances under which the Hebrew poet wrote 
this pastoral verse, and the purpose he had at heart. 
Of course, we understand that he was not merely 
indicting a pretty poem of nature. He had an- 
other flock in mind and other pastures in vision 
than any he saw among the sheep and hills of Pal- 



50 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

estine. To him Israel was the flock and Jehovah 
the Shepherd. And, whenever this serene poem 
was written, it could never have been written at a 
time when Israel had found all its wants and long- 
ings satisfied and was at peace. For Israel never 
came to such a time. Its land of promise, flowing 
with milk and honey, was always just before it. 
It journeyed toward that promise, struggled for it, 
prayed for it, fought for it, was sometimes just on 
the verge of securing it; but Israel never passed 
over the inexorable boundary which separated from 
it. The promised land was an ideal country, — 
always in promises, not in fulfilment. Yet the 
devout Hebrew did not cease to believe in it. 
Though far away from it, he saw it at hand. 
Though enemies resisted his advance, he saw them 
overcome. Though his people were in captivity, 
he saw them free and going forth to conquer and 
possess. And the Hebrew poets and preachers 
never ceased to appeal to and uphold this sublime, 
transcendent faith. To keep the faith was to help 
toward the fulfilment of the promise, — was, in- 
deed, to insure it. Hence, while their national 
wants were still unsatisfied and they were in the 
midst of innumerable troubles, they pictured in 
perfect confidence the serenity and prosperity 
which would surely come, if Israel would but faith- 
fully follow Jehovah's guidance and law. That 
outward serenity and prosperity, which they saw in 
prophetic vision as the fruit of faithfulness, already 
seemed to have settled inwardly upon the souls 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 5 I 

of seer and poet, so that they spoke out of a spirit- 
ual calmness which could not have been suggested 
by their present surroundings. Hence, our Psalm- 
ist saw the green pastures and restful waters 
which were before Israel as if close at hand, and 
he wrote as if he already breathed their atmosphere 
of ineffable peace. "As if" do I say? Nay, he 
did. For to souls such as his, that live in a 
spiritual atmosphere of faith and courage and hope, 
time and distance are elements which do not count. 
For Israel as a people, the green pastures and still 
waters may have yet been far away, with many 
troubled years between. But he who wrote "The 
Lord my Shepherd" had found them. Though 
troubles raged around him, his spirit rested in 
trust on the calm, bountiful bosom of the Eternal, 
and shared the eternal strength and repose. 

And now let us ask what meaning this particular 
verse of the Psalm can have for us in this rational- 
istic age of the nineteenth century. Has the Ori- 
ental picture of the Eternal as a good Shepherd, 
leading mankind into green pastures and beside 
still waters and leading them beyond the bare 
needs of existence, no power to touch our hearts 
nor to stir within us any feeling of its truthful- 
ness? Are we of this prosaic era, — an era of bust- 
ling material energies and enterprises, — when 
gifted minds are not poetizing so much about the 
universe as philosophizing about it, and when the 
philosophies and theologies do not begin so much 
as once they did with a priori assumptions about 



52 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



the perfect attributes of an infinitely perfect Being, 
but begin with observing the hard, bare facts of 
nature and of human life, — are we losing our sen- 
sitiveness for such an idyllic picture of universal 
harmony and peace? Science has, indeed, told us 
of the facts of an animal ancestry for mankind, 
of savagery in which human history everywhere 
begins, and of the animal propensities and habits 
still adhering by the iron links of hereditary law to 
our most advanced civilization; and only our own 
observation is needed to tell us of the wickedness 
and woe everywhere prevalent, — the bitter, killing 
toil, often for the poorest necessities, the gaunt 
poverty, the deadly famines and diseases, the fre- 
quent hardships of innocent souls, the cruel covet- 
ousness of mean and grasping souls, the stories of 
brutal crime which, reeking with blood and filth, 
the news-gatherers bring daily to our doors. Are 
we, I ask, so crowded and pressed by such facts as 
these close at hand that our minds are utterly un- 
impressible by any of the higher and more compre- 
hensive facts of nature and of human life, which 
the Psalmist painted in those phrases, in them- 
selves so beautiful, "the green pastures and the still 
waters " ? Have we become such pessimists that 
we no longer see truth nor beauty in these words? 
Or, if we still see in them a certain artistic beauty 
of form, is the poetic sentiment but a bitter mockery 
for us, in view of the cruel facts of existence? 

Even while my brain was busy, on an April day, 
with these sentences, I looked from my window, 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 53 

and beheld there before me, on the tender spring 
grass, two sparrows in terrific battle, one of them 
picking the very life-blood from the other's breast. 
And, as I looked, I thought of the tender, trustful 
words of Jesus: "One of them shall not fall on the 
ground without your Father." What do those 
words mean, with that fact of bloody sparrow- 
slaughter before my eyes? Yet that battle of the 
sparrows is but the most insignificant fraction of 
the great battle for conquest by blood that is going 
on in the world of nature, and that from time im- 
memorial has been going on, and is still going on 
we must say, among men. What mean these terri- 
ble facts of conflict, battle, and blood, which seam 
with their horror all the strata of natural and 
human history? With our eyes holden by these 
horrors, can we anywhere descry the still waters 
and green pastures of the Psalmist's vision? Yet, 
as I watched the battle of the sparrows, I noted 
also the upspringing grass newly carpeting the 
earth with its beautiful green, and above the war- 
ring birds the tree-buds pushing out their colors; 
and I saw the crocuses in brave blossom where 
snow was lately banked, and all the miracle around 
me of the new spring-time; and I looked up to the 
sky's inimitable blue, arched over all, and to the 
white cloud-ships sailing across that upper main: 
and then my soul said to itself that, despite the 
ugly seams in its structure, this is a beautiful 
world, and despite the moral horrors the moral 
beauty overarches and overpowers them. 



54 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



The Hebrew had to encounter the ugly and bitter 
facts of the same depressing nature as those which 
confront us to-day. Yet through them he caught 
glimpses of green pastures and still waters, — 
glimpses of an ideal destination toward which the 
Eternal was leading his people and against which 
no facts of present hardship would be able to pre- 
vail. The sublime interpretation which he thus 
gave to present facts was impervious to criticism. 
His faith rose above the facts, so that he seemed 
to ignore them. He believed that the Eternal was 
leading him; and would not he do all things 
well, and ultimately make the very enemies of 
Israel to praise him? Of course, our modern lo- 
gician will say that the Hebrew here begged the 
very question at issue. And, regarding merely the 
small segment of human experience which he had 
in view, he did beg the question. The enemies of 
Israel as a nation were not conquered. Nationally 
Israel fell, fell pierced to death by its stronger 
neighbors, fell as the sparrow fell stabbed by its 
angered comrade. As a nation, Israel was not led 
into the green pastures and by the still waters of 
its promised land. And yet, when these questions 
are put to-day, What do these hard facts mean, — 
the cruel conflicts, the disappointments, the hard- 
ships and poverties, the bloody horrors, the spar- 
row's fall, the nation's overthrow, the crucifixion 
of Jesus by his own national kindred, the pressure 
of the poison to Socrates' s lips by the hand of cul- 
tivated, classic Greece? I aver that enlightened 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 55 



reason to-day is in a better condition than Hebrew 
or Christian theology has ever been to overbalance 
all these dark facts of existence with brighter, 
larger, and higher facts, and to give to all life's 
facts a rational and ethical interpretation. 

Science, with its doctrine of evolution, has 
given us the clew. The universe is a school of 
education, which has the Eternal for its leader and 
master, and eternity for its course. The Eternal 
Power is thus, through the new science, revealing 
its purposes in a grander scheme to sublimer ends 
than the Hebrews ever conceived or dreamed of 
in their dream of national glory. It is an ascend- 
ing process and progress, leading on from one ame- 
lioration to another, all the way from the clay 
and the atom and the primal force to the intelli- 
gent consciousness of man, which enacts rectitude 
into laws and customs, creates States, and controls 
brute passions by reason and love. The brief suf- 
fering of a sparrow in its fall, the violent death of 
a man, the calamity of a nation, are throes incident 
to these higher births. Nor, in viewing this evo- 
lutionary process and progress from the point of 
view of science, are we burdened with the ques- 
tions which have always embarrassed the theolo- 
gians in debating the problem of evil, "Why does 
not the Eternal, All-wise, and All-benevolent Om- 
nipotence prevent this, and do that?" It is ours 
only to note what the Eternal is doing, and to ad- 
just our own lives thereto; to discover to what end 
and by what method the Eternal is moving and to 
make that our aim and way. 



56 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



That with respect to man the movement is on- 
ward and upward there is no reason nor science 
that can doubt. The history of the ages is proof 
that man is slowly led, by the constraining power 
within him uniting with the power without, away 
from brutal degradations and childish errors toward 
greatening realms of wisdom and right, and toward 
corresponding experiences of felicity and peace. 

Human adjustment to the Divine or Eternal 
Power, — that is always the one dominant duty. 
Whatever our surroundings, whatever the events 
that befall us, in whatever form the Eternal may 
here and now touch our dwellings, our lives, the 
primary question is, How shall we adjust ourselves 
to the Power so as to draw into ourselves somewhat 
of its strength, wealth of resource, and felicity? 
The Power is abundant, over and above all human 
needs : can we not connect with it so as not merely 
to find all our necessities supplied, but to feel also 
a sense of the supplying, creative, nourishing en- 
ergy around us in such luxuriant bounty that we 
can have no longer present ailing, nor fear for the 
future, nor any sense of estrangement from, but 
only vital unity with, the very sources of Life and 
Well-being and wholesome Joy? 

Consider even the lowest plane of life, — that 
of physical sustenance. "The green pastures and 
still waters " represent that provision for human 
wants which looks beyond to-day's boundary of 
meagre necessities. They may symbolize for us 
nature's fertile resources for meeting man's pro- 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS $7 

gressive wants. Whatever man himself can save 
from the product of to-day's toil, beyond the day's 
needs, for the morrow's or the next week's uses, 
that helps to emancipate him from the mere drudg- 
eries of toil and opens opportunities for the supply 
of higher needs. It may be safely asserted that, 
even with the world as it is, nature's capacities for 
furnishing sustenance to mankind, responding to 
man's labor, would be more than sufficient to feed 
all the millions of mankind on the earth every 
year. Even now, with a more skilful adjustment 
of intelligence to improved methods of cultivating 
the soil and distributing its products and for pre- 
venting waste, there need nowhere at any time be 
starvation nor hunger. But by and by irrigation 
may convert the most desolate deserts into gardens 
and laugh at years of drought and famine. Last 
winter, in California, I saw vast districts of dale 
and hill, which three years before had been as 
barren of vegetation as Sahara, covered now with 
every variety of shrub and blossom, with grass and 
with groves of young orange and olive trees, and 
with forest shade trees thirty feet high and more, 
which had grown in that time from small twigs. 
Irrigation had done it all. The nutritive elements 
were waiting there unused in the soil, and there 
was the snow in sight on the mountains. And 
human skill had married the snow and the soil 
together, and hence all this fruitfulness and 
beauty. The great San Joaquin valley, once al- 
most a desert from the Sierra Nevada to the Coast 



53 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



Range of mountains, now by the same means 
teems with towns and cities, with vineyards and 
orchards and fields of grain, bearing wheat and 
fruit ample for millions of people. Thus by im- 
proved modes of agriculture man literally creates 
for himself green pastures, and waters which shall 
be still or shall flow at his pleasure; and thus he 
produces food in excess of the day's needs, and can 
turn his faculties to other achievements. 

Man's progress in civilization and in the refining 
arts of life depends, for one of its essential condi- 
tions, on the surplus he is able to save from sup- 
plying the mere necessities of physical existence. 
This is true of nations and of individuals. The 
first-earned surplus above actual wants of the body 
is the opening gateway to the green pastures and 
still waters of life. As soon as that saved surplus 
can begin and the saving is persistently followed, 
whether it be a saving of material earnings or of 
time from physical toil, the road is entered that 
leads to better education, enlightenment, culture, 
to refinement of manners and the creation of the 
tastes which demand nobler than physical suste- 
nance and pleasures. That saved surplus above 
daily uses or wastes is the seed of all these men- 
tally nutritious and pleasant pastures, the foun- 
tain whence started the rills that have gathered in 
these inward waters refreshing to mind and heart. 
A dime or half-dime saved each week might mean 
a picture on the wall of the home, plants in the 
window, a plat of grass and flowers in the yard; 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 59 



and these all have their civilizing influence. A 
dime or half-dime saved each day may mean a few 
books, a good newspaper, a brighter smile on the 
face of the wife, better clothed and happier chil- 
dren. The more dimes and nickels saved and put to 
such uses, the more rapidly will the green pastures 
and still waters come, to ornament life's hard ne- 
cessities and relieve its toils. Yet there is many a 
husband and father — sometimes, alas, even a wife 
and mother — who drinks up his green pastures by 
spending the dimes and half-dimes for liquids that 
intoxicate. Philanthropy can do no better thing 
for the laboring poor who depend for their bread on 
their daily toil than to show them how, by saving 
a little money above their needs each week, they 
can throw around their toilsome, arid lives an at- 
mosphere of comfort and even of a refining luxury, 
of which no one can rob them. 

And, again, there is the ornament of a trustful 
and quiet spirit, exhibited in certain characters, 
which carries in itself all the blessedness of the 
best kind of outward possessions. Such persons 
may be poor in worldly goods, they may be forced 
to painful toils, their homes may have little of ma- 
terial beauty; but they have so adjusted themselves 
morally and spiritually to life's trials and duties 
that the green pastures and still waters appear in 
their souls. The beauty which graces their homes 
is that of their own holiness, the nutriment they 
offer is that of the spirit. You feel in their pres- 
ence the refreshing, assuring atmosphere of open 



6o 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



spaces and clear skies. They keep their serenity 
unmoved by life's changes, their trust undisturbed 
by its trials. They are not merely led by the 
Eternal, but they have within them the stability 
and life and repose of the Eternal. Mr. Wasson's 
fine poem, "All's Well," written from a bed of 
broken health and pain and threatening poverty, 
voices the feelings of those who have thus found 
their green pastures and still waters in the realm 
of mental and spiritual possessions. 

" Sweet-voiced Hope, thy fine discourse 
Foretold not half life's good to me ; 
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force 
To show how sweet it is to be ! 
Thy witching dream 
And pictured scheme 
To match the fact still want the power ; 
Thy promise brave 
From birth to grave 
Life's boon may beggar in an hour. 

" O wealth of life beyond all bound ! 
Eternity each moment given ! 
What plummet may the Present sound? 
Who promises a future heaven ? 
Or glad, or grieved, 
Oppressed, relieved, 
In blackest night or brightest day, 
Still pours the flood 
Of golden good, 
And more than heart-full fills me aye. 

" I have a stake in every star, 

In every beam that fills the day ; 
All hearts of men my coffers are, 
My ores arterial tides convey ; 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 6l 



The fields, the skies, 

The sweet replies 
Of thought to thought are my gold-dust ; 

The oaks, the brooks, 

And speaking looks 
Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust. 

" Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow 
For him who lives above all years, 
Who all-immortal makes the Now, 
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears ; 
His life's a hymn 
The seraphim 
Might hark to hear or help to sing ; 
And to his soul 
The boundless whole 
Its bounty all doth daily bring." 

But even where there is less of spiritual experi- 
ence and of moral wealth than this exquisite lyric 
voices, considering, for instance, quite ordinary 
routines of life's ties, toils, and duties, there is 
always ample provision, if we will but seek and 
accept it, for a softening fringe around them of 
grace and beauty, which may be compared to the 
green pastures and still waters lying beyond the 
naked necessities of existence. A happy marriage 
and home, — what refreshment and added vitality 
do they give to the treadmill routines of labor and 
duty! Friendship, good books, the beautiful in 
nature and art and the love that may be cultivated 
for the beautiful, and the stimulus and delight of 
intellectual companionship, — these all make a rich 
part of life's needful luxuries. Man can exist 



62 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



without them, can exist and work and have all 
physical wants as a breathing animal gratified. 
But without them he cannot live according to the 
full breadth and wealth of the normal measure of 
manhood. So, too, duty may be gracefully clothed 
beyond the legal requirement of the commandment. 
The same kind of duty may be done — is done — 
by different persons so as to produce very different 
effects. Let it be, for instance, a needed moral 
rebuke to another or an act of charity. One per- 
son will do it with such rigidness of law and 
frigidity of manner as to irritate and arouse resist- 
ance. Another may do the same action with such 
graciousness of spirit as to make the recipient feel 
all the breadth and sweetness of Nature's bounty. 

But, whatever possessions we may hold in this 
broader and higher domain of life beyond the 
bound of life's primary needs, there is yet always 
a vision of finer fields and purer waters still before 
us. There is no attainment that seems perma- 
nently to satisfy as if it were the end. The Eter- 
nal ever leadeth us on to some further goal. 
Nourished in the green pastures, refreshed by the 
still waters, we are strengthened for another jour- 
ney and prepared for nobler tasks. "Sweet-voiced 
Hope" is the enticer. The young man's or the 
young woman's toil to-day over books or music or 
accounts, or at some necessitated or chosen task of 
the hands, might become a wearing, degrading 
drudgery indeed, did not hope light up the future 
with some finer achievement as the result. The 



GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS 63 



highest ideals of character, the highest ideals of 
society, — these are still disembodied. They in- 
vite us onward to give them body and power. 
With social weals the age is alive. Impracticable, 
fantastic, impossible, many of them may be; but 
beneath them is a divine discontent, because of 
present wants inequitably satisfied and of higher 
wants struggling for birth, a divine discontent 
which calls for a new adjustment of social rights 
and duties. So much of human vitality, on one 
side, is spent perforce in the mere labor of keeping 
soul and body together, and so much, on the other 
side, is wasted in needless and enervating luxuries, 
that the refreshing pastures and restful waters of 
social life are hardly yet in sight. Still, there is 
good reason from past experience for the faith that 
present iniquities will gradually be removed, jus- 
tice be done between man and man, labor and capi- 
tal join hands in friendship, and, in some happier 
century to come, righteousness and peace kiss 
each other. 

I know that the fulfilment of this great hope is 
commonly adjourned to another world. The Chris- 
tian Church especially, apparently despairing of 
ever finding the green pastures and still waters on 
earth, has put them among the promised pleasures 
of the redeemed in heaven. This world it has de- 
scribed as mainly given over to the wiles and woes 
of evil, as a vale of tears and griefs : only in the 
world to come could the hope for happiness and 
peace find its fruition. But it has not been my 



6 4 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



purpose to follow this teaching of ecclesiastical 
Christianity. Rather have I aimed to keep with 
the Hebrew, who believed that this world was not 
so bad that it could not be redeemed, and that its 
utmost desolations could be made to rejoice, and 
blossom as the rose. I have sought to show how 
even here, along the dusty, toilsome, and often 
sorrowful ways of earthly life, the Eternal has 
brought the green pastures and still waters close 
to our reach; aye, how he has caused them also 
to spring up in human souls themselves, ample 
with an inward bounty and beauty of spirit to com- 
pensate for outward trials and wants. The He- 
brew believed in a Deity omnipotent for good on 
earth, but did not give time enough for the accom- 
plishment. This thought allows all time for the 
grand consummation, which, through man's own 
help, shall show earth's deserts converted into 
gardens and its hells into rooms of heaven. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



III. 

PATHS OF SAFETY. 

" He restoreth my soul : he leadeth me in the paths of righteous- 
ness for his name's sake. 

In this verse of the Twenty-third Psalm, the 
revised version ventures a single change from the 
King James translation. It substitutes the word 
"guideth" for "leadeth." The euphony is thereby 
somewhat improved, since we have the word 
"leadeth" in the preceding verse; and the sense is 
in no way altered. The original Hebrew, more- 
over, has two different words, and hence on this 
point the revised version is the more exact; while 
the change from the common version is so slight 
that an ordinary reader, even though familiar with 
the old form of words, would hardly notice the 
variation. And this, I may say in passing, illus- 
trates one of the rules which appears to have been 
followed by the authors of the new translation; 
namely, to be faithful to truth in the rendering 
unless old and devout associations were to be too 
rudely shocked, but, when these were likely to be 



66 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



thus shocked, then exactness of truth must yield to 
the devout associations, even though the original 
utterance be believed to be a miraculous revelation 
of the perfect truth. But in this verse the revisers 
might have made still greater changes in the in- 
terest of exactness, and have thereby still further 
improved the poetic diction. Following in the 
main the version of Dr. Noyes, we should then 
have this rendering of the verse which is to occupy 
our attention this morning: "He reviveth my soul; 
he guideth me in paths of safety for his name's 
sake." You will note that the phrase "paths of 
safety," which the Hebrew allows, is in finer 
keeping with the metaphor of the Shepherd leading 
his flock than is the common version "paths of 
righteousness." And yet, as we shall see later, 
the final idea is not essentially different. 

The meaning of the first clause, "He reviveth 
my soul" (or "restoreth," as the King James ver- 
sion has it) is that the Shepherd takes means to 
impart new life to the flock or to refresh their 
spirits, after fatiguing journeys, for instance, or 
hard pasturage, or exhaustion from heat. The 
effect of the resting in green pastures and beside 
the still waters is gathered up designedly by the 
poet in these first words of the subsequent verse, 
"He reviveth my soul"; and then a still further 
idea is added to the same thought in the suggestion 
of the Shepherd guiding his refreshed and rein- 
vigorated flock onward in "paths of safety." 

And this is a good place to call attention to a 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



67 



unique feature which often appears in the rhyth- 
mical structure of Hebrew poetry. It is called 
"rhythm by gradation." The Psalms thus con- 
structed are entitled "Psalms of Degrees," or 
"Steps." Perhaps they were originally used as 
chants in solemn processions. And their pecul- 
iarity is that "the thought or expression of a 
preceding verse is resumed and carried forward in 
the next." One of the best illustrations where it 
is simply the resumption and enlargement of the 
expression is the One Hundred and Twenty-first 
Psalm: — 

" I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, 
Whence cometh my help : 
My help cometh from the Eternal, 
Who made heaven and earth," etc. 

And the Twenty-third Psalm presents a fine ex- 
ample of the resumption of the thought rather than 
the verbal form, — the resumption of the thought, 
with enlargement and heightening from verse to 
verse, from the first sentence, "The Eternal is my 
Shepherd," to the climax of the last words, "And 
I shall dwell in the house of the Eternal forever." 
Sometimes the relation between the verses is not so 
much a resumption of the thought as suggestion of 
thought. The "I shall not want " of the first verse 
suggests the abundance and refreshment of the 
"green pastures and still waters" of the second 
verse; and this bounty of grass and of "waters 
of restful quietness " suggests the refreshed and 



68 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



quickened life and its continual guidance in safe 
paths beyond both want and harm. In the next 
verse, again, the safe paths extend even into the 
valley of deathly shadows. Bearing in mind this 
peculiarity of structure, we are helped to a clearer 
perception of the delicate shadings and blendings 
of the thought as well as of the beauty of the poet- 
ical form. 

Let us now return from this digression, explana- 
tory of ' the peculiar connecting links between the 
verses of the Psalm as a whole, to the more special 
theme contained in this third verse. And our first 
inquiry is, What was the thought in the Hebrew 
poet's own mind, which he clothed in the poetic 
language of this verse? Possibly it may have 
occurred to some of you that, in the substitution of 
the phrase "paths of safety" for "paths of right- 
eousness," the one most conspicuous ethical element 
of the Psalm has been swept away. But not so. 
The Hebrew word (Tsaroq) is capable of both 
renderings. It is a word rich in varied meanings, 
yet all of them branching from one root-thought. 
The primitive significance of the word as applied 
to physical things (and in that usage the word 
originated) is straightness, evenness. It was spe- 
cially applied to straightness and evenness of 
paths, as opposed to crookedness, roughness, and 
deviousness. It meant Tightness and fitness of 
physical things with one another. Hence, and 
still on a physical plane, it meant safety, felic- 
ity, deliverance from difficult places. But, with 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



69 



the intellectual development of the Hebrew people, 
the same word came to be applied to mental and 
moral attributes. It became one of their greatest 
words. It then meant mental and moral straight- 
ness, uprightness, integrity, justice, righteous- 
ness, which would bring national deliverance from 
difficulties, bring national felicity and prosperity 
and salvation. The Hebrews had other words for 
some of these ideas; but the ideas to them were so 
mutually related and dependent that they came to 
use the words interchangeably. The straight paths 
of righteousness were for them, individually and 
nationally, the only paths of safety and salvation. 
Hence the Psalmist, voicing in this song Israel's 
trust in Jehovah and comparing it to the assured 
confidence of a flock in its shepherd, would have in 
his thought both of these allied meanings. True 
to his metaphor, his poetic vision would see the 
flock led in the paths of physical safety ; but in the 
moral application both he and his people saw that 
the very word he used meant that for Israel there 
were no paths of safety except those of righteous- 
ness. With regard, therefore, to the central 
thought of the verse, no deduction is to be made 
from the strong ethical meaning of the common 
version, "paths of righteousness," though we sub- 
stitute for it the more metaphorically consistent 
phrase "paths of safety." To the Hebrew, safety, 
salvation, and righteousness meant for human 
beings essentially one and the same thing. 

But this central idea of the verse is placed be- 



70 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



tween two other ideas, which are also important in 
disclosing the poet's full thought. First he says, 
"Jehovah reviveth [or restoreth] my soul." The 
word (Nephish) here translated "soul" is the 
same word which the writer of Genesis used in de- 
scribing the creation of man, where Jehovah is de- 
picted as breathing into the nostrils of the clay 
image he had formed "the breath of life; and man 
became a living soul." The Hebrew word for 
"soul " signified primitively the breath of life, the 
animating principle of all living creatures, the vital 
essence without which they could not be sustained 
in existence. And this always remained the pri- 
mary and leading meaning of the word. The deriv- 
ative meaning, of a rational intelligent principle as 
something distinct from the physical principle of 
life, never had for the Hebrews so prominent and 
positive a place as it has had in Christian thought. 
The soul was literally to them the breath of life, 
as it was the breath of Jehovah's life, from whom 
it came. And the Hebrew poet's most natural 
thought in this first part of the verse is that 
Jehovah still revivifies and refreshes this principle 
of life which came from him. One of the most 
literal translators renders it, "He reviveth my 
life." Dr. Noyes, while retaining the word 
"soul," in a note paraphrases the meaning of the 
sentence thus: "He refreshes me when drooping 
and fainting with fatigue or distress." In all trans- 
lations this idea of renewal of vitality is evident. 
The other subsidiary thought, on the other side 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



/I 



of the central idea, is contained in the familiar 
Scriptural phrase "for his name's sake," — "He 
leadeth in paths of righteousness for his name's 
sake," which means simply that he does it be- 
cause of his own nature, or from the impulses of 
his own being and for ends involved in his being. 

These three elements, then, constituted essen- 
tially the thought of the verse as it sprang from 
the Hebrew poet's mind, but disrobed of its poet- 
ical dress : first, Jehovah — the Eternal — is the 
continual quickener and sustainer of human life, as 
he was its creator; second, he is guiding human 
life toward and in ways of righteousness and 
safety; third, his doing, both as to motive and 
end, is because of the nature of his own being. 
Now put the three parts together into prose thus : 
"The Eternal Power is the producer and sustainer 
of life, and in and of its own nature is guiding 
life onward to righteousness." Is there anything 
in that statement which the human mind to-day 
can rationally deny? As we approach the twen- 
tieth century, are we outgrowing the convictions 
here expressed? Has science as yet even offered 
anything to displace them? So far from it is the 
fact that we may say with confidence that the doc- 
trine of evolution, which is at the basis of modern 
science, involves necessarily these convictions. 
As in the discourse on "The Eternal our Shep- 
herd," so again let us use Herbert Spencer's 
propositions to illustrate this. I refer to him not 
because I am an accepter of his philosophical sys- 



72 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



tem, though I recognize his great ability both in 
research and analysis, but because he is the ac- 
knowledged head to-day of that large school of 
philosophy which takes as the basis of its reason- 
ings only such phenomena as science would accept. 
Alongside, then, of the foregoing translation of 
the poetry of our verse into philosophical prose, — 
"The Eternal Power is the producer and sustainer 
of life, and of its own nature is guiding life on- 
ward to righteousness," — let us place Mr. Spen- 
cer's now familiar declaration concerning what he 
commonly calls the "Ultimate Reality," "the Un- 
knowable," or the "Great Enigma" of the uni- 
verse: "There remains the one absolute certainty, 
that man is ever in the presence of an Infinite and 
Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." 
That tallies sufficiently with so much of the He- 
brew thought as refers to the relation of human life 
to the Eternal and to the action of the Eternal 
Power from its own nature. And as to the other 
part, the guidance in righteousness, consider this 
passage from one of the earliest of Mr. Spencer's 
works: "Man may properly consider himself as one 
of the myriad agencies through whom works the 
Unknown Cause; and, when the Unknown Cause 
produces in him a certain belief, he is thereby 
authorized to profess and act out that belief. Not 
as adventitious therefore will the wise man regard 
the faith which is in him. The highest truth he 
sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let 
what may come of it, he is thus playing his right 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



73 



part in the world — knowing that if he can effect 
the change he aims at — well; if not — well also; 
though not so well." Mr. Spencer wrote this par- 
ticularly of intellectual truth; but he would say it 
equally of ethical truth, and it would apply equally 
to the conditions of moral progress. The Eternal 
Power, we can say, is guiding man in righteous- 
ness, because the Power is itself organized in 
human beings as the sentiment of right and as the 
impelling authority of obligation to do the right. 
Even ordinary men and women have this much of 
the Eternal within them directing them toward 
right paths. And in extraordinary men and 
women, in saintly characters, in heroic actors for 
the right, in martyrs and prophets, it is nothing 
less than the veritable power and presence of the 
Eternal that in and through them is leading and 
lifting the world to higher righteousness. 

Of course, I am not claiming that the Psalmist 
himself had the slightest intimation of these ethi- 
cal results of the doctrine of evolution or any con- 
ception of that doctrine. Nor am I making any 
attempt to rationalize his words in order to fit 
them to modern beliefs. That is always a vicious 
mode of interpreting the Bible or any other book. 
I am not in these lectures seeking Biblical author- 
ity, but only a possible harmony between the 
suggestions of poetic religious sentiment and sci- 
entific fact. The Psalmist accepted, doubtless, the 
belief of his time and race that the relation be- 
tween Israel and Jehovah was of a supernatural 



74 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



kind; that God had mechanically created man, as 
the Genesis writer said, from the dust of the earth, 
and then breathed into the frame of flesh the breath 
of life; and that, all along, the divine guidance 
of Israel was miraculously attested. But, though 
doubtless holding these theological beliefs, they do 
not appear in this song of confidence and hope. 
Nothing appears there that, considered as poetry, 
is at all inconsistent with the most rational belief 
in the natural order and unfolding of the universe 
as explained by the most recent science. Like all 
great poets, the Psalmist was a seer as well as poet. 
He had an insight into deeper truths than those 
which the theologies express, — into truths which 
underlie all forms of statement and abide, though 
the verbal forms may change and disappear. The 
important thing for us to note in respect to this 
verse is that the poet here expressed a sublime 
faith in the Eternal as the power that from its own 
nature and life produces and sustains life in indi- 
vidual human beings and in nations, and is guiding 
life on to moral consciousness and moral deeds. 
This is the great and abiding truth which this 
verse has brought down to us; and this truth is of 
infinitely greater moment to us than to know what 
kind of theological explanation the writer might 
have given of it. And it is of infinitely more 
consequence to us to-day to grasp this truth of 
vital relation between man and the Eternal, — to 
grasp it not merely in its intellectual but in its 
practical bearings, — than it is to hold this or 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



75 



that philosophical theory concerning the mode of 
the relation. And should any one still object that 
the poetical imagery of the verse is anthropomor- 
phic, pointing to an external relation between God 
and man rather than to an inward organic relation, 
I should answer that a similar objection might be 
made to Emerson's "Song of Nature," whose 
motive is to depict the creative process according 
to the philosophy of evolution. That is, he per- 
sonifies, as the Hebrew poet did. 

" I sit by the shining Fount of Life 
And pour the deluge still " 

suggests a venerable personal figure, mixing the 
creative elements which are finally to result in 
man. These are matters to be settled by the 
canons, not of logic nor metaphysics, but of poetry. 

But there is another point where the underlying 
truth of this verse comes into wonderful accord 
with the rational and scientific thought of the 
present day. It is one of the recently discovered 
principles of the science of ethics, which may now 
be regarded as established, that the law for distin- 
guishing between right and wrong had its origin 
in the instinct of self-preservation or of physical 
safety. I do not mean that it is settled that the 
entire moral sentiment thus originated. There is 
a part of the moral sentiment, and a most impor- 
tant part, — as the intuitive sense of justice, for 
instance, — which I do not think can be thus ac- 
counted for. That part of the ethical faculty I 



7 6 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



should define as an intuitive perception of the 
equation of rights between human beings in their 
relations to each other. At first a man said to his 
neighbor, You have no right to kill me, you have 
no right to take away my food. But by and by 
there dawned a day when he saw that, if his neigh- 
bor had no right to rob or kill him, he for the 
same reason had no right to rob or kill his neigh- 
bor. That is, what was good for him was equally 
good for his neighbor. Then dawned the idea of 
justice and the Golden Rule. And this is a per- 
ception that was as sure to come with a certain 
stage of mental development as was the perception 
of the mathematical relations between numbers. 
But, long before this stage of development was 
reached, there came to primitive man from the in- 
stinct of self-preservation the first crude perception 
of a division of things or acts into those that were 
right and those that were wrong. Actions and 
things which favored life were regarded as right : 
they were to be sought as good and fitting. But 
actions and things which were hostile to life, 
threatening or assailing it, were regarded as 
wrong: they were to be shunned. And they were 
instinctively shunned, in fact, as their opposites 
were instinctively sought. And this primitive at- 
tempt at moral classification of things on the line 
of the separation between things according as they 
favored or did not favor the instinct of safety for 
one's own life remains to this day the bottom line 
of the distinction between good and evil. Only 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



77 



the definition of life has now become for man so 
enriched and heightened that that original divid- 
ing line is mostly concealed or obliterated. Still, 
to-day it is the things which favor life that are 
right, and the things which oppose life that are 
wrong. But for civilized and enlightened man- 
kind life means vastly more than it could mean 
for the primitive savage, who was simply bent on 
finding supplies for his physical instincts. Above 
the physical life are now whole realms, another 
order of life, — intellectual, moral, affectional, 
philanthropic, spiritual, — of which our barbarian 
ancestors were wholly ignorant. Yet it remains 
true that things which favor these higher and high- 
est phases of life are the things which we are to 
seek as right, and that things opposing are to be 
shunned as wrong; so that now it happens that the 
mere physical instincts, even the instinct for sav- 
ing one's own bodily life, must often be denied 
and sacrificed for the sake of holding to the things 
demanded by the higher life. There are many 
things which a highly moral man will die rather 
than do. He will let go his physical life in order 
to keep untarnished his moral integrity, his honor, 
his convictions of truth. 

" Though Love repine, and Reason chafe, 
There came a voice without reply, — 
'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 

When for the truth he ought to die." 

E?nerson. 



Now, whence has come all this varied and won 



78 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



derful development of the function of life, as- 
cending in man from the lowest grade of fleshly- 
instincts, through realms of intellectual sagacity 
and enjoyment, and of affectional activities, and 
through all the grades of moral perception and 
deed, up to the hero's self-sacrificing action in 
defence of the right, and to the beauty of holiness 
shining in some woman's character and face, whom 
you may find unhonored and little known on 
your own street? Whence comes it all? all this 
abounding richness, power, and beauty of moral 
life? Whence but from the mystery of that "Infi- 
nite and Eternal Energy, from which all things 
proceed?" Whence but from that Power Eternal 
which the Hebrew conceived as breathing into man 
the breath of life, as ever invigorating that life 
from his own nature, and continually leading man- 
kind on in ways of righteousness to higher and 
nobler life? If the Hebrew conceived the action 
of the Eternal as outward and miraculous, while 
modern science regards it as inward and organic, 
the difference is not as to the substance of the 
fact, but as to the method of explaining it. 

Life itself, then, under the impulsion of the 
Eternal Power, develops and advances in the 
human race on the lines of righteousness. In 
other words, the paths of righteousness are the 
paths of preservation, safety, increasing vitality, 
and growth. The right is organic, organific, life- 
sustaining, and life refining and greatening. Evil 
is inorganic, disorganizing, disintegrating, nox- 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



79 



ious, and deadly, — in the end suicidal. The late 
Professor Kingdon Clifford, the premature cutting 
off of whose remarkably acute and sincere intellect 
the philosophical and scientific world can but still 
lament, was fond of touching upon this scientific 
natural distinction between right and wrong. 
"My actions," he said, "are to be regarded as 
good or bad, according as they tend to improve me 
as an organism, to make me move further away 
from those intermediate forms through which my 
race has passed, or to make me retrace these 
upward steps and go down." This organic power 
which appears in right action he personifies as 
"the mother principle of Life." He was very 
chary, you know, about recognizing or naming any 
power that theologians have called God; but this 
phrase, "the mother principle of Life," may re- 
mind us of Theodore Parker's frequent descriptive 
name for the Eternal Power, "Our Father and 
Mother God." And to this "mother principle of 
Life" Professor Clifford's fine poetic instincts led 
him to apply, still further personifying it, Mr. 
Swinburne's rich hymn, which aptly illustrates our 
theme : — 

" Mother of man's time-travelling generations, 

Breath of his nostrils, heart-blood of his heart, 
God above all Gods, worshipped of all nations, 
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art. 

" Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder 

Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things ; 
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder 
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings. 



So 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



" Thine hands, without election or exemption, 

Feed all men, fainting from false peace or strife, 
O thou, the resurrection and redemption, 

The godhead and the manhood and the life." 

The phrasing of this hymn is more modern, more 
colored by scientific thought; but in essential idea 
and sentiment there seems to me no great differ- 
ence between it and the Twenty-third Psalm. 
And the poetic metaphor is fully as audacious and 
anthropomorphic as was that of the Hebrew singer. 
Indeed, the Hebrews' conception of Eternal Power 
and of its relation to human life on earth was more 
in accord with the modern scientific view of the 
universe than the commonly accepted Christian 
theology has been. We may almost say that the 
Hebrew thinkers anticipated that scientific view of 
the law of right being the organic principle of life 
which we have been considering. They saw at 
least the vital connection between righteousness 
and life and the successful attainment of life's 
ends, whether in individuals or in the nation as a 
whole. This truth was a central article of the 
Hebrew faith. Israel's prophets preached it and his 
poets sung it. The Hebrew had a glowing vision 
of national prosperity, power, and happiness; but 
he saw the realization of the vision always at the 
end of the paths of righteousness. It was right- 
eousness that would exalt the nation. The national 
kings, in fact, were not very righteous; yet in 
righteousness was the king's throne to be finally 
established. And the sacrifices which the people 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



8l 



brought to the altars — that is, their forms of wor- 
ship — were declared to be worthless unless with 
them they brought the sacrifices of righteousness. 

And these truths have lost none of their force 
with the lapse of centuries. There are weak 
points in our own national life where they apply 
to-day with special aptness, — points where party 
success is sought rather than the country's welfare, 
or self-seeking demagoguism is raised to places 
of power which should only be filled with wisdom 
and integrity, or wealth buys its way into official 
position where only honest votes should be the 
electors. At all these points and others which 
might be named lurks danger. At every national 
act of injustice there is a fracture of the nation's 
armor. Every species of wrong-doing, every kind 
of wickedness, whether on the part of a nation or 
an individual, falls back with devastating effect on 
the doer. We cannot wrong the negro, nor the 
Indian, nor the Chinese, without wronging our 
country by retarding its possibilities of progress in 
real greatness. It was one of the ancient wise 
men of India who wrote: "Justice, being de- 
stroyed, will destroy; being preserved, will 
preserve: it must therefore never be violated. 
Iniquity committed in this world produces not fruit 
immediately, but, advancing by little and little, it 
eradicates the man who committed it. He perishes 
at length from his whole root upwards." Thus our 
doctrine comes back from the far East: it is only 
paths of righteousness that are paths of safety. 



82 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



Wrong is a crime against the universe. Right is 
the law of unfolding and ascending life for per- 
sonal man and for mankind. 

Illustrations of this pregnant truth in individual 
experience we should not have to seek far to find, 
— men and women who, because of some wrong 
committed against the body or against conscience 
or against the higher aspirations of heart and soul, 
lose not only the high successes which their facul- 
ties might have achieved, but lose the very power 
of achieving; while persons of smaller natural 
gifts, by keeping to the paths of right, advance 
steadily in mental and moral wealth and in all the 
satisfactions that are worthiest of human attain- 
ment. The paths of rectitude, of purity, of tem- 
perance, of kindness, of love, of honor and honesty, 
these are also the high and straight paths of safety. 
They are the ways of the Eternal, the highways 
which the Eternal Power has been preparing 
through the ages whereon man may walk. Into 
these ways and on them the Eternal is still striv- 
ing to guide mankind. Manifold are the solicita- 
tions and constraints which would hold man to the 
high paths of rectitude and holiness. Alluring 
hope beckons. Fear of the natural retribution of 
pain, which follows every departure from the way 
of right, urges. Conscience, with its august au- 
thority, commands. Reason, by its persuasions, 
invites. The heart, through its kindly sympathies 
and loves, its generous affections and spiritual 
ideals, offers the gentler leading-strings for keep- 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



83 



ing human feet and faces turned toward the better 
future. Thus the Eternal, with man and in man 
and through man, has, from the beginning to this 
day, been guiding him onward in a pathway of 
material and moral amelioration and ever toward 
some larger, purer, and richer good. But this 
guidance is for mankind, and for individual man as 
a part of mankind. The aim of the Eternal is not 
to gratify selfish, individual passion as an end in 
itself, — not to grant a purely selfish pleasure, or 
safety, or prosperity. The principle is, not what 
is good for me singly or you singly, but for us and 
all together. And the same majestic yet tender 
Power is at this moment soliciting each one of us 
to come willingly, docilely, with our whole heart 
and soul and mind and strength, under this wise 
and benignant leadership, as active helpers in the 
ameliorating work. The ameliorations both social 
and personal may be slow, but they come. To 
what great consummation even on this earth they 
tend, our finite understandings may have little 
power to descry. But, where the understanding 
cannot see, the spirit can dream and yearn and 
impel. The Hebrew poet pictured for Israel at 
the end of the paths of righteousness a land "flow- 
ing with milk and honey," — a national era of 
undisturbed power and prosperity. England's 
laureate has voiced the nineteenth century social 
dream, — 

" In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 



8 4 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



And, to show that this principle is no mere 
philosophical abstraction, let us note a few of the 
familiar practical exhibitions of its working. Not 
far-fetched, but every-day illustrations they shall 
be, and briefly sketched. Two men are making a 
business bargain with each other. It is for goods 
or labor or skill on one side, to be paid for in 
money on the other; or it is some kind of ex- 
change of service or of property. On the ground 
of purely selfish propensity each strives to get the 
better end of the bargain, the utmost possible for 
himself, leaving to the other the shorter part of the 
exchange. But there comes in a third party to 
this contract, demanding equal and honest measure 
between them. This demand is made by the Eter- 
nal that is in them, — the voice that pleads in each 
of their hearts, however much they may attempt to 
confuse and silence it, for honesty and honor. 
These, it says, are the pathway of the Eternal : 
make room for them in your contract if you would 
have it hold before the moral tribunal of mankind 
and your own conscience. 

Questions of great public moment arise, — ques- 
tions affecting the interests, the physical and 
moral welfare, of large numbers of people; ques- 
tions of social and political reform; questions per- 
taining to the relations between capital and labor. 
Here, too, it is some form of selfish interest that 
is the cause of strife. One man's or party's self- 
ishness pulls this way, and another's selfishness 
pulls that way. "Follow the paths of the Eter- 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



85 



nal," cries a voice above self-interest or party 
interest, "which are ways of justice and equity." 
Find them, and they will safely bridge the gulf 
that separates you. Or it may be a strife between 
nations. National selfishness, a false pride, a 
false patriotism, high, giddy-headed arrogance 
and boastfulness, and even selfish individual ambi- 
tions, help to foment the terrible passions of war. 
But in the midst of all such international strifes 
there enters another power that demands justice 
and magnanimity, — a Power that is the arbiter 
among the nations, and declares that only by ad- 
hering to these ways of the Eternal Righteous- 
ness can strife be allayed and peace preserved 
permanently. 

A young man or a young woman reaches the age 
of discretion and responsibility. Youth with its 
tasks and its training is over. They are about to 
take their places in the striving world of business, 
or of professional or social achievement. They 
are elate with anticipation and the sense of free- 
dom, eager for the new tests of their powers. 
They can follow some of the manifold ways of self- 
ish pleasure and pursuit; they can live for social 
success, make fashion a god, regard wealth as the 
chief end of existence, and covet the material lux- 
uries and enjoyments which wealth can purchase. 
They may be ambitious of high position and dis- 
tinction without much concern about the means. 
They may be free even to follow the beck of false 
pleasure to lower levels of folly and vice. But 



86 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



there is no young man or maiden who has had the 
fortune of a home education of even average worth 
to whom, at such an era in their lives, there will 
not come from their own hearts a protest against 
all the grosser of these forms of self-indulgence, 
and a summons to higher paths and pursuits, for a 
nobler success. There are high fields of honor and 
duty and usefulness, of noble culture and unselfish 
service to others' good, which also invite their 
fealty and their consecration; and this is the invi- 
tation of the Eternal. In brief, it is an hour when 
the ways of the carnal self and the ways of the 
moral self are alike soliciting their hearts; and 
they must choose between them. The earnest ap- 
peal of the nobler self is, Bar out the tumult of 
the selfish ambitions and passions, the revelry of 
carnal desire and ignoble pleasures, and follow the 
highways of the Eternal. 

Again, the passion of love enters the heart, that 
kind of love which is Nature's special way for the 
preservation and progress of society, through the 
founding of the family and the home. This in- 
stinct of love, in itself, is literally the constrain- 
ing power of the Eternal in the human organism, 
so that the old religious tradition is right which 
represents marriage not merely as a civil contract, 
but as a divinely ordained institution. Indeed, it 
may be in this sense, as the Catholics claim, 
rightly called a sacrament. Yet how often mar- 
riage is degraded to merely a union of self-inter- 
ests, or, following the sexual instinct alone, may 



PATHS OF SAFETY 



87 



even be debased to prostitution and cruel sensual- 
ism! The flesh itself then, in protest against the 
profanation, cries out for the higher law, for the 
Power whose ways are manifest in Reason and in 
Conscience as a law for the effective control of the 
instinct. Thus, and thus only, can marriage be 
lifted above the physical bond to a vital union in 
heart and soul, to the end of increased intellectual 
and moral productiveness. In every marriage rela- 
tion, lest passion should become selfishly extor- 
tionate, and the parties be too exclusively absorbed 
in their own joint interests and pleasures, let hus- 
band and wife take their vows to the law of right- 
eousness as well as to each other, and through that 
bond in the Eternal be joined together. Then 
shall marriage become, not the debaser, but the 
sustainer of purity, holiness, moral growth, and 
genuine love. 

There is, in fine, no personal relation in life, 
whether it be between neighbor and neighbor, be- 
tween citizen and citizen, between husband and 
wife, between teacher and the taught, or among the 
various members of the household, where the voice 
of the Eternal does not proclaim the law of right- 
eousness as the way to unity and mutual helpful- 
ness in the upbuilding of character. It is the 
voice of that mysterious, unseen guest who makes 
the third in every human transaction, calling for 
justice, honesty, and honor, who enters noiselessly 
every company, to silence the slanderous tongue 
and to command courtesy, candor, kindness, and 



88 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



truth. It is the voice of the One over all and 
through all, who has the right to say: — 

" They reckon ill who leave me out; 
When me they fly, I am the wings. 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again." 

Man may follow the ways of the lower self, 
which end in disappointment and ashes; or he may 
follow this higher guide, whose ways, even when 
difficult, are lined with pleasantness, and all whose 
paths are toward peace. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



IV. 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS. 

" Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me." 

I have named the topic suggested by this verse 
of the Twenty-third Psalm "The Valley of 
Shadows." The phraseology of the common ver- 
sion has tended to associate the verse very deeply 
and almost exclusively with the human experience 
of death, — with bereaved hearts and darkened 
homes, and the mysterious passage of familiar 
friends to some other and unseen sphere of exist- 
ence. But to the Hebrew the structure of the lan- 
guage suggested a much broader meaning; namely, 
any perils comparable to the dark mystery of death. 
The key-phrase of the verse is "shadow of death"; 
and in the Hebrew idiom "shadow," or "shade," 
is the leading noun, and the adjunct "of death" 
performs the service of an adjective. The Hebrew 
language is very poor in adjectives, and nouns 
habitually are used for descriptive epithets; and 



90 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

the common version too often follows the Hebrew 
rather than English idiom in this respect, and 
hence frequently leads to misconception of the 
original meaning. A more exact rendering of the 
meaning of this phrase would be "deathly shadow" 
rather than "shadow of death." It is not an infre- 
quent phrase in the poetry of the Old Testament ; 
and the context, as well as the structure of the lan- 
guage, shows that the general idea is that of death- 
like darkness in opposition to the light and cheer 
of life. There is another word in the verse which 
may be improved in the interest of exactness; 
namely, the word "rod." It means here the shep- 
herd's crook. But it has another meaning in the 
Hebrew as well as in English, by which it becomes 
an instrument of chastisement and terror. This, 
of course, cannot be the meaning in this verse. 
Making these changes, so as to get nearer to the 
actual thought and imagery of the Psalmist, we 
should have: "Yea, though I walk through a valley 
of deathly shadows [or, still stronger, deathly dark- 
ness], I fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy 
crook and thy staff, they comfort me." 

This translation, while more literally exact than 
the common version, gives us a phraseology equally 
poetical; and, you will note also, it is a rendering 
that harmonizes much better with the metaphor of 
the shepherd guiding his flock. For the common 
version here, as in the phrase "paths of righteous- 
ness " of the preceding verse, has the defect of 
passing from the metaphor to the human side of the 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



91 



comparison, which the metaphor should vividly 
suggest to the imagination, but not express. Nor, 
it may be added, is it probable that any Hebrew 
poet would have ventured to assert of a dumb 
animal that it could be led into a pen of actual 
slaughter, with the sight of death-struggles before 
its eyes and the terrorizing smell of blood in its 
nostrils, and show no signs of fear. It could 
be led through dangers and darkness, confiding in 
the shepherd's care, but not without terror to the 
extremity of death. This is a victory over the 
animal instinct of life-preservation which is re- 
served only for rational and moral beings. 

Following, then, the changed translation I have 
offered (which is very nearly that of Professor 
Noyes, and of which, let me say in passing, the 
moral lesson for mankind would remain essentially 
the same as that conveyed by the common version, 
only enlarged), following this changed translation, 
what was the idea imaged to the Hebrew poet's 
mind in this verse? We can present it as a pict- 
ure, for doubtless it was pictured before his mental 
vision. He had imagined the flock led by the 
shepherd from the green pastures and still waters 
where all their wants had been more than supplied, 
and as then gathered and guided, with their re- 
freshed animal spirits, along paths of safety as if 
bound homeward to their folds. But the homeward 
paths of safety suggested the further thought that 
even these safe paths must often pass through ways 
of seeming danger. For his people, to whom his 



9 2 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



song was to carry its moral lesson, the poet knew 
that the safe paths often thus lay through imminent 
perils. His thought of a safety full and complete, 
therefore, in order to reach its climax must be 
tested, not merely by ways of comparative smooth- 
ness and ease, where all was light and cheery, but 
by ways of difficulty and darkness, where unseen 
dangers might lurk and life be menaced by secret 
foes. His metaphor was adequate to the need. It 
is not unlikely that there came to his mind and to 
his poetic vision the vivid remembrance of some 
actual valley which was known to him, — a narrow 
defile, with rocky but wooded heights looming 
precipitously and darkly up on both sides; a valley 
of shadows even at noonday, damp and deathly 
with its malodorous atmosphere, but at twilight, 
with its deepening darkness, a place of terrors, 
suggesting wild beasts watching in ambush for 
their prey; a place ghostly with the mystery of 
evil, and hinting every imaginable form of it. 
The poet had probably seen a flock following their 
shepherd through such a defile. He had seen the 
sheep of the flock, as they struck the dampness 
and darkness of the valley, instinctively huddling 
closer together, as if for mutual protection, and 
crowding closer upon the heels of the guiding 
shepherd, no one of them there lingering to nibble 
a tempting blade of grass, nor to quench thirst at 
any wayside spring, yet the flock moving onward 
in perfect order, without panic, as if massed in 
one bodily organism, only with a little quicker and 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



93 



more regular step than elsewhere, and with animal 
spirits subdued under the darkening shadows, mov- 
ing steadily onward after their shepherd and appar- 
ently with entire confidence in his power to lead 
them safely through, either to the morning light 
and the joy-giving pastures or to the sheltering 
folds of their nightly rest. Very literally, per- 
haps, by some actual experience they may have 
learned that his crook and his staff could be 
trusted for their defence against foes along this way 
of dismal shadows. 

Some such scene as this was probably pictured 
to the Psalmist's mental vision; and the Hebrews, 
for whose inspiration to patriotic faith and heroism 
he sang this song of trust, could not fail to under- 
stand the lesson, however little they may seem to 
have profited by it. In this verse, especially, the 
poet's phrases were rich in meaning for them. 
Well they knew that their actual ways were not 
often ways of pleasantness, nor their paths peace. 
Well they knew that their national road was often 
narrow, devious, and difficult; that it was beset 
with perils and lay under great shadows of mystery 
and darkness. Secret and open enemies awaited 
them on either hand. Battle and death had to be 
faced. Their pathway was marked with a trail of 
blood. Jehovah they trusted as their God, and 
that they were his peculiar charge was their faith. 
Yet Jehovah's purposes were sometimes veiled 
from them in thick clouds of darkness, when he 
seemed to have left them to their fate. But the 



94 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



Psalmist sought to inspire his countrymen with the 
assurance that, amidst all trials, darkness, and 
perils, Jehovah was still their guide, and that he 
was not afar off, — a distant Deity, — above the 
clouds and beyond the valleys, but a leader there 
with them, under the clouds and in the valleys, 
with them. Therefore, with such a leader and pro- 
tector, what evil could they fear, even though they 
walked among the dark shadows of death? The 
shepherd's " crook " was emblem also of authority 
and power. It carried to the Hebrew mind mani- 
fold meanings. It represented kingly sovereignty. 
Sceptre was one of its synonymes. It stood also 
for the united strength of a tribe. And the shep- 
herd's "staff" meant not only a stick to lean on, 
a stay, a support, but it had another meaning sig- 
nifying the means of physical sustenance, — kin- 
dred to the English phrase "staff of life." To the 
Hebrew, therefore, Jehovah was here depicted not 
merely as Shepherd and Guide, but as Sovereign 
Defender and King, as the Bond of tribal union, 
as Stay and Supporter of human uprightness, and 
as Sustainer of Life against the powers of darkness 
and death. 

Not that the average Hebrew mind distinctly 
held together all these attributes in his concep- 
tion of Jehovah as a Shepherd. Perhaps the poet 
himself did not have them all clearly in his 
thought as he wrote. Yet his words imply them ; 
and all these qualities, and more, were continually 
affirmed of Jehovah in the best Hebrew literature. 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



95 



The writers resorted to every kind of noble appel- 
lation, yet could not find epithets of excellence 
enough to match their ideas of his greatness in 
power and in righteousness, so that, after all 
their rhetorical endeavors at description, they 
humbly acknowledged that, "Lo, these are but a 
part of his ways." And the poets and prophets 
were ever aiming to stir into effectual motive these 
higher and deeper elements of Hebrew faith. 
Hence our Psalmist, while he would still declare 
that Jehovah was a leader of Israel, by the way of 
righteousness, into paths of safety, yet saw and 
also declared that the ways of righteousness and 
salvation often led downward, through trials and 
dangers, to seeming desolation and death. Never- 
theless, let Jehovah's leadership be followed, and 
even that way, he proclaimed, might be trod with 
serene fearlessness. With the Eternal Power as 
leader close at hand, there would surely be victory 
for the right at the end of the way, — victory for 
light and for life over desolation and darkness and 
destruction. 

Now the essential elements of belief couched in 
this verse (which has itself been a comfort to 
millions of souls), when translated from metaphor 
to plain prose, are simply these: Human expe- 
rience is not all bright and joyous, but has its 
trials and sorrows, and always present before it is 
the dark problem of death ; but there is an Eternal 
Power with man, working with and in and for him, 
amply adequate for meeting all problems and all 



9 6 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



trials and for allaying the fear of them, — a Power 
working for Righteousness through all tribulations, 
and for Life in the midst of death. Nor has any- 
one of these points been gainsaid by the rational 
thought or science of the nineteenth century. The 
first of them, that man is subject to trials and sor- 
rows, and stands ever in the presence of death, is 
merely a fact of common observation and knowl- 
edge. The second, that there is an Eternal Power 
working with him, is one of the affirmations of 
science in the doctrine of evolution. The third, 
that this Power is an ameliorating force, working, 
amidst human conditions, towards personal and 
social Righteousness, and ever higher forms of 
Righteousness and of Life, is amply based on the 
testimony of human history. And even though it 
be said that the ameliorating power for mankind is 
displayed wholly in and through man's own facul- 
ties, nevertheless, according to scientific doctrine, 
the power must be derived from and be a manifes- 
tation of "the Eternal Energy from which all 
things proceed." 

But these several propositions have been suffi- 
ciently considered in previous lectures, and need 
not detain us to-day. Beyond anything I have 
been able to say, they may be regarded as having 
received, both from philosophy and science, abun- 
dant justification. The more important question 
which remains for us now is, Are these truths re- 
ceiving, or can they receive, practical justification 
in present human experience? To put the ques- 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



97 



tion still more definitely, Is this verse, which 
gives us our theme to-day, true to the experience 
of human beings whose lives have come within the 
compass of our own knowledge? Is it true to our 
own experience? Now possibly we may not have 
realized the truth of it in our own experience be- 
cause of not having observed the right conditions ; 
and yet it may still be true. And possibly we may 
have observed a similar seeming failure in the ex- 
perience of other persons for the same reason. 
But, in a larger survey, taking in all our varied 
experiences and those of other persons within our 
knowledge, do we find that the comforting assur- 
ance of this verse is practically justified? And, it 
should be added, a negative experience, for the 
reason above named, — that is, failure to meet the 
hard experiences of life in the right way, — might 
be positive evidence of the practical truth of the 
verse. 

In seeking an answer to this question, two points 
definitely present themselves which can be best 
considered separately: first, the common perplexi- 
ties, trials, and hardships which beset human life 
and which make a large part of our "valley of 
shadows " ; second, the dark fact of death, which 
has caused human life on earth to be called "a vale 
of tears." 

First, as to the trials, hardships, difficulties with 
which human life has to contend. We must here 
revert, primarily, to what I have called, in these 
lectures, the universal plan for the education and 



9 8 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



civilization of mankind by a gradual process of 
adjustment of human life to the great world-ener- 
gies. We saw that, by the very conditions of this 
process of educational adjustment, man's wants 
could not be provided for by a cosseting Provi- 
dence outside of himself, with no effort or thought 
of his own; but rather the conditions necessitated 
the putting forth of human faculty in a strenuous 
struggle with difficulties. We saw, indeed, that 
the Eternal is leader, a provider, whose sources of 
supply are to be depended upon, an Energy from 
which all finite energies are derived, but that for 
man the leading is through the inward constraining 
force of reason and conscience and the moral senti- 
ments, and the provision largely through his own 
disciplined ability to care for his own life and 
destiny by adjusting himself to nature's forces and 
laws. It is not for us, using the methods of sci- 
ence, to ask why things pertaining to the education 
and progress of mankind are thus and so. We 
have simply to note the facts and follow the law of 
their trend. And among the most conspicuous 
facts of human history we cannot fail to note that, 
in order to gratify his desires and even to maintain 
his existence, man has had to grapple with difficul- 
ties, to contend against obstacles, to fight often, 
with hand and brain, against nature's forces threat- 
ening to quench his life before he can subject them 
to his service. He has been compelled to labor, to 
self-exertion, to the agile use of physical and men- 
tal faculties by the very conditions of life. And, 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



99 



as a result, we must note the enlargement of his 
life, the increased development of his faculties, the 
growth of physical skill, of brain power, and of 
moral enlightenment; in a word, the result is man 
educated from animalism into a civilized and ethi- 
cal being. The obstacles, the hardships, have been 
the anvils on which his faculties have been shar- 
pened and shaped to larger uses, and personal char- 
acter has been hammered to a firmer strength and 
tempered with spiritual refinement. 

All this history tells us. Adverse circumstances 
— that is, seemingly adverse — are not man's ene- 
mies, but may be his friends. It depends on how 
he adjusts himself to them. But, leaving history, 
do you not know of men and women, contemporary 
with yourselves, who have harmoniously and suc- 
cessfully made that adjustment? men and women 
who have converted the very obstacles in their 
careers into stepping-stones to some higher suc- 
cess? men and women in whose experience trial 
and tragedy may seem to have had a larger place 
than joy, but who from all their conflicts, from 
their baptisms as if with fire, have only come forth 
stronger and purer for useful deeds, the serenity 
of their faith unshaken, their humane sympathies 
quickened, their goodness heightened and glorified? 
How can such persons have any fear of evil cir- 
cumstances? They know the Eternal to be with 
them, a Power stronger than circumstance or fate; 
and the Eternal is, indeed, with them, the very 
sustenance and life of their goodness and of their 



100 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

noble serenity and spiritual beauty. Again I ask, 
Have not you known such persons ? And have you 
not at times been conscious of the same Power 
moving and working within your own minds, to 
transform some hardship or sorrow in your experi- 
ence into moral goodness and a deepening of char- 
acter? The way of life, which is the way of 
righteousness, often must pass through a valley of 
shadows, dark, dispiriting, deathly. Yet it is the 
way of life still, and the way of safety, for all who 
have learned faithfulness to the law of life, which 
is righteousness. For them the very difficulties 
create in the soul a more robust fibre, and they 
emerge from the valley of darkness into light with 
a clearer vision and a firmer step for ascending 
life's heights. In their hearts they carry the very 
presence-chamber of the Eternal, with his sceptre 
and his staff; and their lives are adjusted to 
organic unity with his ways and for arriving at his 
high results. 

It would be easy to fill large space with special 
illustrations of this truth of the transformation of 
hard circumstances into noble character. But I 
must limit myself to two or three that are fresh- 
est in my notice. And I retain those that were 
freshest at the time of my writing. The morning 
paper of the day on which I wrote brought two 
despatches, which in opposite ways hint the lesson. 
The first is a telegraphic despatch from Texas tell- 
ing the story of four suicides there, in the same 
town, on the same day. Two young women and 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



IOI 



two young men, their lovers, had done this desper- 
ate act. One of the four lived long enough after 
the suicidal deed to say that they had taken a 
pledge to one another to end life together at their 
separate homes, but within the same twenty-four 
hours; that they had tried to live true and honest 
lives, but the world was against them, and the 
harder they tried the worse things became; that 
they were too poor for marriage, yet felt that life 
was not worth living apart, and so they resolved 
to end it all, together. This was a case of lament- 
able failure to make right adjustment to life's 
conditions. These young people lacked those 
qualities of high courage and confidence which are 
able to convert failures into success and to wrest 
from calamities the materials of moral victory. 
Instead of facing difficulties and conquering them, 
they slipped unsummoned ignominiously from the 
field. The other item was the story of the painful 
catastrophe which has befallen a young professor in 
Michigan University. Bending over a chemical 
experiment he was conducting in his laboratory, an 
accidental explosion so injured his eyes that both 
of them had to be removed at once. Only twenty- 
eight years old, with already a high reputation as a 
chemist and a brilliant promise before him! We 
can hardly conceive of a greater calamity befalling 
an eager student of natural science. Yet he is 
likely to prove himself of the stuff from which 
heroic character as well as science comes. He has 
before him for inspiration the noble, well-rounded 



102 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

life of England's late postmaster-general and dis- 
tinguished political economist and reformer, Henry 
Fawcett, who at twenty-five years totally lost his 
sight by an accident, but who thereby turned 
his retirement into studies which have blessed his 
country and the world. Yet the greatest blessing 
of his life comes from the example he has left of 
a man undaunted by such a catastrophe, pursuing 
his life-purposes firmly and calmly against such 
difficulties, and, withal, achieving a character as 
beloved as his abilities and usefulness were hon- 
ored. Our own honored countryman and brilliant 
historian, Francis Parkman, against similar almost 
insurmountable obstacles, followed unswervingly a 
purpose formed at seventeen years and achieved his 
world-famous life career. 

Another illustration is brought to my memory. 
Some of you here may recall that touching incident 
which happened at the visiting committee's re- 
ception at the Massachusetts Kindergarten for the 
Blind last year. Helen Keller, a girl of then 
eleven years, whose name is becoming as well 
known in Boston and Massachusetts as was that of 
Laura Bridgman, — a girl who is blind and was 
a deaf-mute, but who has been taught to speak, 
though she hears no sound, and who has a genius 
for sympathy and love, — was the most impressive 
speaker of the occasion. She had taken a most 
active interest in the forlorn condition of Tommy 
Stringer, a little fellow of five years, a deaf-mute 
and blind like herself, who had recently been 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



103 



brought to the institution, but whose parents had 
no means to provide a special teacher for him. 
Helen has taken it upon herself to raise the funds 
for his education; and, in her little speech appeal- 
ing for his needs, this girl who hears no sound, 
who sees no object in this fair world, said: "Life 
is sweet and beautiful when we have the wonderful 
key of language to unlock all its secrets. Educate 
Tommy, and give him this key." But this was not 
all. Dr. Edward Everett Hale followed, saying, 
at close, " Let every man and woman, every boy 
and girl, give something." Then there was a 
pause, broken by a sob from a little boy, one of the 
littlest of them all, who could not repress his feel- 
ings. A teacher, who was his shepherding crook 
and staff, gathered the little lamb in her arms to 
comfort him. He buried his blind eyes against 
her neck, but he was only blind. He had heard 
the speeches, and he could tell his trouble; and, 
when the teacher coaxed it from him, it was that 
he "had no money to give for little Tommy." 
Thus this blind baby, scarcely able to talk plainly, 
made the most eloquent appeal of all. When the 
meeting broke up, and it was told from one to an- 
other what was the cause of the child's grief, his 
sob was converted into subscriptions; and one lady 
from a distant Western city, a stranger to most of 
the people there, a Hebrew woman, asked the 
privilege of being an annual subscriber to the 
kindergarten in behalf of Tommy Stringer, and in 
response to his still smaller companion in blind- 



104 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

ness, whose heart had broken into a sob because he 
couldn't help Tommy himself. For those of us 
who have all our senses it seems as if there could 
be no valley of shadows deeper in its gloom than 
that through which these little blind children are 
doomed to walk all their days. Yet what a light 
of sympathetic love streamed from their sightless 
eyes through all that company ! a light and warmth 
of love which revealed strangers' hearts to each 
other as of one blood and kindred, and touched 
a sentiment within differing creeds and faiths 
which melted them into one religion. Thus the 
calamity that afflicts these little children becomes 
the nurture of humane and spiritual life in the 
mature men and women who are drawn to care 
for them; and the ennobled life of these benefac- 
tors is again reflected back as the light of love, 
which penetrates even under the dark shadows of 
blindness, so that those whose eyes see not and 
whose ears hear not can yet feel that " life is sweet 
and beautiful " for them. To have effected this 
interchange of human sympathies, to have lifted 
life up to this level of unselfish love and devotion, 
I had almost said it were worth while that the 
calamity should come. Yet that I will not say. 
This, nevertheless, is true : the calamity having 
come, the dark and the tragic intermingling every- 
where with the good in our human lot, we can see 
how, in this and in other of life's hardships, the 
great world-purpose takes them up and weaves 
them into the world's benefit. Wonderful is that 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



105 



power of compensation in nature by which one of 
the senses adjusts itself, by increase of scope and 
refinement, to do the work of other senses that may 
be enfeebled or disabled! And wonderful, to the 
height of the miraculous, is the educational skill 
which, working with this facility of nature, can 
give to the sense of touch, as it were, sight and 
hearing, and cause the blind and deaf-mute to 
articulate, to speak, and rationally converse! It is 
as if the Eternal Power had said: "My intent shall 
not be balked by any calamity that may close 
the eye or the ear. I will give eye and ear to the 
sense of feeling, and so cause the tongue of the 
dumb to shout for joy; and thus shall my blind 
ones see and my deaf hear and my dumb speak. 
Only I want men and women who are wise, loving, 
and patient, to be my agents for working this mir- 
acle of scientific skill and philanthropy, whereby 
I may guide and comfort those who walk in the 
lonely valleys of darkness and desolation." 

So, too, of that more special calamity which our 
verse in the original does not name, yet suggests, 
— the fact of death. Death is one of the mysteries 
which has made the whole world akin. Strangers 
elsewhere, around an open grave we join hands as 
brothers. All nations, ages, faiths, are linked 
together by this bond of our common humanity; 
and it is a bond of humanity in the finer sense 
of that word as well as in the sense of a common 
physical nature that is mortal. Whether in palace 
or in hut, death is the same mysterious, solemn 



106 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

messenger, before whom all alike must bow. A 
world watched at President Garfield's death-bed, 
and again at the Emperor Frederick's of Germany, 
and at General Grant's. And in General Grant's 
great career there was no soldierly heroism which 
so ennobled his fame and endeared him to mankind 
as did that self-controlled, serene, and masterful 
march in his last year against the forces of Death, 
in order that, before the inevitable hour when he 
must surrender his pen to the advancing foe, he 
might see his self-imposed task complete, and 
leave to his family and to the historic annals of 
his country the rich legacy of his Autobiography. 
The sympathetic interest of a world surrounds such 
deaths. But the same regardful anxiety watches 
somewhere, though confined to one room and a few 
neighbors, the slowly wasting life of some poor 
sewing-woman, whose heroic combat for life no 
fame tells to the world. Death equalizes all, 
despite unequal monuments in graveyards. "The 
small and the great are there together, and the 
clods of the valley shall be alike sweet to them." 

The Hebrews appear to have had no such terror 
of death as certain Christian theologies have culti- 
vated. Their system of rewards and retributions 
was practically limited to this world. For the 
greater part of their national history they mani- 
fested no specific belief in immortality. Not until 
their contact with the Persians, in the time of their 
captivity to these people of the old Zend religion, 
did they imbibe that doctrine. The doctrine ap- 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 



107 



pears in the Apocryphal Old Testament, written 
after the Captivity, but not, except by a few vague 
intimations, in the canonical Hebrew Scriptures. 
As a substitute for spiritual and personal immortal- 
ity in another world, the Hebrews seemed to have 
faith in a national immortality for Israel in this 
world. And that kind of immortal existence, like 
the present life of the nation, they associated with 
righteousness. Long life was one of the promised 
rewards of righteousness. Death they regarded as 
an evil, not for any torments that would follow it, 
but because it was antagonistic to life; and, as the 
enemy of life, they associated it with unrighteous- 
ness. Sometimes it seems as if they believed that, 
if they could attain to perfect righteousness, they 
would overcome death and then have power to live 
forever. 

But, so far as this verse of our Psalm is con- 
cerned, deathly things and death itself were put 
with other mysterious trials and calamities as not 
to be feared, since the Eternal was present to guide 
safely through them. That Power could be trusted 
to make all things, if not clear, at least right and 
sure. And in its essential features this belief 
finds practical justification to-day. Let death come 
into our homes when and in what form it will, and, 
however deep may be the grief that comes in its 
train, it is yet one of the inevitable facts to which 
we are to so adjust our characters and lives as not 
to sit in dismay and lamentation over the evil of it, 
but to draw forth all the compensating moral and 



108 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

spiritual good which may be hidden in the sad ex- 
perience. It is no fable, no myth, that the Eternal 
is with us in those hours, — with us in the silence 
and under the shadows, — and with us, as rational 
thought to-day assures us, not so much as a far-off 
celestial guide and a mysterious, overseeing Provi- 
dence, as the old theologies have been wont to 
teach, but veritably within us as a form of strength, 
sharing and enduring with us our burden, and nerv- 
ing us with courage to meet the new responsibili- 
ties and the strange and bereft condition of life. 
We know, too, in this modern time, that death in 
itself is no calamity, that it is no abnormal intru- 
sion into nature's order, but a natural stage in the 
unfolding of that order itself, at one with nat- 
ure's organic law and with all her maturing proc- 
esses. Death, when it comes in old age, in accord- 
ance with natural law, is like the harvesting of 
ripened grain. Cicero likens it to the gentle touch 
of the fingers on perfectly ripe fruit, which requires 
no violence to pluck it. It is then one of the 
beautiful, orderly mysteries in the great procession 
of the occasionally resting, but all-abounding and 
never-ending forces of life. Nor would it be an 
entirely visionary and irrational expectation to look 
forward to a time, centuries and centuries hence, 
when mankind shall attain to a height of civiliza- 
tion so enlightened and moral, and shall have so 
learned and obeyed the laws of life and health, that 
disease will be practically conquered, and death 
will come painlessly as the natural limit of the 



THE VALLEY OF SHADOW'S IO9 

physical organism in old age. There is actually 
some scientific ground for such an expectation in 
the fact that the tables of longevity, computed for 
the business of life insurance, show a perceptible 
increase in the average length of human life with 
the progress of civilization and the better observ- 
ance of sanitary laws. Death, so considered, would 
be no catastrophe, but one kind of culmination in 
nature's order. But premature death — death in 
youth or in early maturity — is a calamity usually 
to surviving friends, and may be a calamity and 
loss to the world. Thus coming, death may plunge 
bereaved families from the fairest heights of hope 
and happiness to the depths of despairing agony. 
But even then the tragedy may be met so as to draw 
from it those higher ministries that may transform 
grief, not into joy, but into noble service and 
chastened beauty of character. Have we not all 
witnessed such transformations? 

In every such company as this are likely to be 
those who have recently been walking in the valley 
of death's shadows, and are still gazing wistfully 
after the forms of beloved ones who have passed 
through it. Others among us may be watching 
with even a more anxious tenderness the tremulous 
steps of friends and kindred who may be entering 
it. All of us, day by day, are approaching that 
valley, and none of us can evade it. Yet, which- 
ever be our case, let us not look on death as "the 
king of terrors," nor think that our valley of 
shadows is only a blot of darkness on the universe; 



I IO 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



but rather may we see how it connects outward 
and upward with a world of everlasting light and 
life and beauty, with bright mountain-tops and 
clear skies. 

The monk, Francis of Assisi, as the end of his 
life came near, addressed Death as his "sister." 
This amiable and accomplished saint lived in such 
close, familiar intercourse with nature that he was 
wont to call all natural objects his kindred: the 
sun, the moon, the grass, plants, water, and light 
and fire and air were his brothers and sisters. 
They were all forms of the Eternal; what could he 
fear? So, as his eyes grew tired and dim, he wel- 
comed his "sister Death," and put his hand trust- 
fully in hers, that she might lead him in his dark- 
ness ; but down into his darkness shone the eyes of 
his brothers, the stars, and over and around all 
was spread the light of the Eternal, undimmed: 
and, lo! his darkness was day. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



V. 

THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY. 

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine ene- 
mies : thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." 

On reaching this verse our Psalmist abruptly 
changes his metaphor. He abandons the imagery 
of a shepherd leading his flock for that of a host 
serving his guest. Yet the poet's thought goes on, 
rising toward its climax with such perfect consist- 
ency that an ordinary reader, not thinking of 
critical analysis, is not likely to notice the sudden 
rhetorical transition. It seems as if the pastoral 
figure was no longer adequate to the emotion which 
stirred the poet's soul, as he thought of the bounti- 
ful provision made by Jehovah for human needs and 
happiness. After the pastures with their tender 
grass and refreshing waters of quietness, after the 
journeyings, whether by safe and plain paths or by 
ways of menacing and deathly dangers under safe 
guidance, there was for a flock no other natural 
conclusion than the sheltering folds for rest. 
But the dangers which had been safely passed 



112 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



suggested to the poet's imagination a more demon- 
stratively triumphant issue. The hostile difficul- 
ties depicted in the preceding verse gave the 
cue-thought to that victory over enemies which this 
verse celebrates; and the happy exit from the val- 
ley of shadows was cause for a scene of festive 
rejoicing for which the narrow conditions of the 
sheep-cot and the small wants of dumb creatures 
now seeking only rest and sleep furnished no mate- 
rials. Hence the figure of a hospitable house- 
holder caring for guests occurred to the Psalmist's 
poetic vision as offering more ample conveyance 
for his enlarged and heightening thought. 

This was a favorite figure of speech with the 
Hebrews, as the New Testament, as well as the 
Old, bears witness. Hospitality was, and still is, 
one of the supreme Oriental tests of religion and 
humanity. No finer metaphor was available for 
carrying to the Hebrew mind an idea of Jehovah's 
devoted and inexhaustible care than to present a 
picture of the head of a household caring with im- 
partial and lavish generosity for his guests. To 
such a picture the poet turned — perhaps uncon- 
sciously — for continuing his parable. The flock 
of dumb creatures was displaced by a vision of 
tired and needy human travellers. They, too, may 
have had to journey not only by fatiguing but by 
dangerous roads. In narrow and dark defiles ene- 
mies may have waited in ambush for them, and 
may have even harassed and pursued them beyond 
the perilous pass and out upon the open plains to 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



113 



the very gates of refuge which opened to welcome 
them. Once within, the sentiments of honor and 
humanity were their protectors. We may imagine 
a Hebrew patriarch, with his numerous household 
around him, as the host. The law of Moses bade 
him to treat with equal justice the native-born and 
the stranger within his gates. He was even to 
love the stranger as a brother, and the law of hos- 
pitality bade him quickly to supply the stranger's 
needs. His hospitality was unstinted in profusion 
and untainted by suspicion. Even in actual sight 
of pursuing enemies a table might be spread with 
all needful and bountiful viands. If it was a time 
of feasting, the traveller became as one of the 
guests. After the Eastern custom, the host might 
even anoint his head with perfumed oil, for re- 
freshment and honor and in token of hospitable 
welcome. In the midst of such a banquet the 
weary and harassed traveller, safe from his perils, 
surrounded by such friendly protection, might in- 
deed exclaim that the cup of his felicity was filled 
to overflowing. 

And the overflowing bounty of Jehovah's provi- 
sion and care for Israel was what this verse of the 
Psalm said to the Hebrews. Remember that the 
whole Psalm was a song of patriotism, a song of 
religious, spiritual patriotism, not a celebration of 
the sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong, " but 
a song intended to inspire the highest patriotic 
hope and courage, and faith in the law of right- 
eousness as the basis of national prosperity. The 



U4 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



theme all through was trust in Jehovah as guide 
and protector, as supplier of wants and rescuer 
from dangers; and in this verse the thought as- 
cends to the contemplation of Jehovah's over- 
whelming resources for meeting every possible 
strait. Whatever might be Israel's needs, dangers, 
or distresses, there was One at hand, so preached 
this prophet-poet, whose power and good will were 
manifest as even more than ample to carry the 
nation safely through any emergency. Jehovah 
was described in Hebrew poetry not only as a 
Being eternal in power and awful in majesty, but 
as one whose works superabounded in goodness and 
gladness. He was said to make the very earth 
rejoice, to crown the years with goodness, to cause 
the valleys to stand so thick with corn that they 
shout and sing for joy, to make the ground soft 
with showers, and to bless the increase of it. His 
very steps dropped richness; and the fields of the 
wood rejoiced before him, rejoiced because he 
cometh to give justice to the earth and to judge the 
people with his truth. 

In such picturesque language did Israel's poets 
try to impress their idea of the character of Je- 
hovah as the all-bountiful giver of good, and this 
verse of the Twenty-third Psalm is an illustration 
of the same attempt. By its structure the verse 
concentrates attention on three points of the all- 
dominating Bounty. Under the figure of a hospi- 
table and beneficent householder, supreme in power 
as in goodness, Jehovah is represented, first, as 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



115 



revealing his abounding friendliness and munifi- 
cence, even in the very sight of enemies, as if defy- 
ing their pursuit and annulling their power. The 
singer had doubtless in mind, as his hearer would 
have, the actual and almost omnipresent armed foes 
by whom the Hebrews were surrounded, and whom 
they had to meet, and, it must be admitted, were 
not reluctant to meet, in stratagem and in battle, 
in order to preserve their national existence. The 
verse was designed to inspirit and nerve Israel for 
the hard tasks of war by presenting a picture of the 
abundant rewards of peace at the end of the con- 
flict. The bountiful table spread in the face of the 
foe was a symbol of the coming national prosperity 
and wealth, — a vision which poet and prophet 
never ceased to hold before the eyes of the people, 
however hard-pressed the people were by actual 
distress. And, indirectly, the phrase "in the 
presence of enemies " might stand for any difficul- 
ties and obstacles that hindered the realization of 
this vision, for any kind of hostility or terror 
which had been met in the "valley of shadows" 
and triumphantly vanquished. The same Power 
that had led safely through those dangers now 
turned the dangers into a banquet of rejoicing. 
This was the purposed result of the struggle and 
its interpreter. The feast represented that bounty 
of good things which the overcoming of every kind 
of antagonism had made possible; but, lest it 
should be said that the Hebrew idea of prosperity 
was too exclusively material, it must not be forgot- 



Il6 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

ten that one of the essential conditions — the 
fundamental condition, indeed — of arriving at this 
goal of national felicity was obedience to the 
law of righteousness. Only paths of righteousness 
were the paths of safety, which led finally to this 
great salvation and joy, of which the feast was em- 
blematic. Thus did the Hebrew poets and proph- 
ets teach in their highest moods. 

Second, under the metaphor of the host of a 
hospitable house, the Psalmist represented Jehovah 
as specially honoring Israel as his guest, in pict- 
uring him as observing the Oriental custom of 
anointing a guest's head with oil. This was a ser- 
vice which a host might commit to the hands of a 
hired servant. But, if he wished particularly to 
do honor to any guest, the host performed this 
bfrlce himself, not in the spirit, however, of con- 
descension and patronage so much as in the spirit 
of friendly equality and fraternal fellowship. He 
brought forth his costliest ointment, spiced and 
perfumed with the most precious substances, and 
with his own hands both honored and refreshed 
his guest by this menial service. This anointing 
of the head was the same ceremony which was in 
use as a prominent feature in the consecration of a 
king or a high priest to his office. In its generic 
meaning it simply signified a high token of honor 
and regard. In its more specific meaning it sym- 
bolized the bestowal of the highest human authority 
upon those who received it. The language of the 
poet here was bold — bold almost to the point of 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



117 



audacity — when we consider that it was Jehovah, 
the Eternal Power, who was from everlasting to 
everlasting, and whose throne was regarded as es- 
tablished above the heavens, and whose majesty 
was unapproachable, who was also described as a 
host hastening to do honor to a guest and person- 
ally serving his wants. But to the Hebrew there 
was little or no incongruity between the two ideas. 
His Deity, it is true, in the most abstract concep- 
tion, was a far-off inaccessible sovereignty; but he 
was also conceived as very human, even more so 
than would accord with the ordinary Christian con- 
ception, and, in his human aspects, as coming 
very close to man and serving him, though in 
miraculous ways, yet in very humble capacities. 
He it was who was believed to have corralled 
quails for the Israelites when in their hunger they 
cried for flesh, and to have kept the poor widow's 
barrel of meal and cruse of oil replenished while 
she harbored the fugitive prophet Elijah. A Di- 
vine Being who was believed to do these things 
would suffer no loss of dignity in Hebrew eyes, 
though he should be described as a host honoring 
his guests as if he were their servant. 

Third, the Psalmist's comparison of Jehovah's 
bounty to an overflowing cup meant that the provi- 
sion made for the Hebrew people by their eternal 
care-taker was not limited nor measured by their 
actual wants; that the divine resources so over- 
flowed all present needs that there should be no 
anxiety as to the future. This point is so simple 



Il8 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

that it requires no further explanation. True, the 
Hebrew believed that miracle was one of Jehovah's 
resources for eking out the shortcomings of nat- 
ure, or for resisting nature's disasters when they 
pressed too hard. But to the Hebrew mind — to 
the mind of every primitive people, indeed — it 
was more natural to believe in miracle than in un- 
varying law. The verse, however, makes no sug- 
gestion of miracle. And, in any case, the main 
lesson of this point was the fact that Jehovah's 
bountiful provision for Israel was overflowing and 
immeasurable, and not how the beneficent power 
was exercised. 

Now remember that Jehovah, the most familiar 
Hebrew name for Deity, may be rendered by the 
phrase "The Eternal" better, perhaps, than by 
any other English expression. It means Eternal 
Existence and the power therewith implied. A 
good paraphrase of its signification may be found, 
as I have already in these lectures pointed out, in 
Herbert Spencer's phrases, the Ultimate Reality, 
with its infinite and eternal Energy. Hence, 
denude our Hebrew poet's thought of its meta- 
phorical dress, and he was saying something like 
this: "Though I am continually in the presence of 
forces which are inimical to life, thou, O Eternal, 
art my bountiful provider; thou honorest me by 
serving me; yea, thy bounty lavishly outruns all 
my needs." This is personification, it is true. 
But every one of the three things here asserted, the 
doctrine of science might and does say to-day of 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



119 



the Eternal Energy from which all things proceed. 
When Science turns poet, as it sometimes does in 
the fervid utterance of such a man as Professor 
Tyndall, it personifies and says these things to the 
Eternal Energy. 

But, again, as in the preceding lecture, it is not 
so much philosophical justification for these state- 
ments as practical justification that needs at the 
present time to be most set forth and illustrated. 
The enemies of human happiness and life, even in 
the midst of our most advanced civilization, are so 
many and so persistent and strong that it some- 
times seems very hard to believe in any bounti- 
ful provision for human needs. The enemies, the 
hostile forces, are present and very close, while 
the supplying bounty may seem far off, beyond 
reach and call, so distant as not to be realized. 
Just now, especially, is a most opportune time to 
consider the first of the three statements of our 
verse from a practical point of view. The casual- 
ties from natural causes, the devastations to prop- 
erty and life, within the last year have been 
appalling, to say nothing of those catastrophes in 
which human agency has been more apparent. 
Floods and tornadoes, mine explosions and drown- 
ings, earthquakes and conflagrations, have been 
casting human beings into the abysses of death by 
the thousands. And where, many persons have 
asked, amidst such scenes of terror, devastation, 
and destruction, is the careful and bountiful Pro- 
vider? Why does not the Eternal Power intervene 



120 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

to save human beings and human possessions from 
such fearful disasters? 

In attempting an answer to this question, we 
must again remind ourselves that the Eternal 
Power may shepherd and beneficently provide for 
mankind, though not on the cosseting plan of a 
special Providence which would intervene to snatch 
us from this or that danger. It is the ground plan 
of this universe that human beings should become 
a providence to themselves; that the Eternal Power 
works within and through their own faculties by 
natural law; that thus it provides and cares for 
them, while all around them, as well as within 
them, are the mighty forces on which they are to 
draw for sustenance and benefit. Whether the sus- 
tenance and benefit will be formed in individual 
cases depends on the measure of adjustment to 
these great world-forces. That the welfare is 
found in the experience of mankind at large there 
can be no question. For this process of adjust- 
ment of finite life, through finite perception and 
effort, to the infinite resources and forces that per- 
vade and surround it, is the school of education for 
the human race from savagery to civilization, and 
to all the power, prosperity, happiness, and well- 
being which an enlightened and moral civilization 
implies. And all the time, while mankind are 
staggering under the difficulties which confront 
them, in presence of the very enemies of their 
prosperity and peace, this infinite bounty of natural 
resource is offered, awaiting and soliciting man's 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



121 



adjusting effort to partake of it. While we may 
be reading, every spring-time, of destruction and 
death by flood and gale, Nature weaves around us, 
alike under storm as under sunshine, her yearly 
garment of life and beauty. And, when the deso- 
lating winter storms come, Nature is not dead. 
In the tiny, strongly cased buds on yonder leafless 
trees are safely garnered all the vital hopes of next 
year's bounty of foliage and fruit. Dissect if you 
can a single snowflake of the storm, and you 
will find it a house of perfect crystals of amazing 
beauty. Seed-time and harvest arrive in their 
order, not with such certainty of measure as to 
make man careless on his side of the needed mut- 
ual service, but by laws that never fail. Some- 
where the earth produces, or may be made to 
produce, enough for all who anywhere live upon it. 
Under the ground are stored treasures of wealth, 
ready at man's transforming touch to be converted 
into heat and light and motive power. And in 
what secret cells of earth or of air is hidden that 
mightiest and most marvellous of nature's forces, 
which, wherever hidden, man has discovered, but 
is only just learning its vast capabilities of ser- 
vice? The thunderbolt, drawn from that secret 
chamber, is becoming man's right hand. The 
lightning's spark is steed for our loaded cars. 
And the same power, under a surgeon's scientific 
skill, has removed a tumor from a baby's lip as 
painlessly and tenderly as if done by a mother's 
kiss. It seems as if everywhere the Power of the 



122 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

Eternal in nature were appealingly saying to man, 
M Learn how to use me, and see how I will bless 

you!" 

For the truth of these lessons of our Psalm I 
like to find the most recent illustrations possible; 
and there came to me, as I wrote, an apt illustra- 
tion of this point we are now considering, in the 
number, just then at hand, of that little newspaper 
called the Southern Letter, which is printed by the 
colored students at the Tuskegee Normal School, 
Alabama, a school where the president and 
teachers are also all of the colored race. The 
little sheet comes to some of you, perhaps; but it 
is so very small and modest that I suspect it is 
quite likely to go into the waste-basket unnoticed. 
But, humble as it is in appearance, I always find 
in it some suggestive hint of the way in which 
good is gradually overcoming evil in this world. 
First, at the head of it, there stands the excellent 
motto, "Devoted to the Education of the Hand, 
Head, and Heart." And this is what that school 
is doing down there for the colored people, right 
in the presence of their old enemies, who once held 
them in the ignorance of slavery, but who are now 
being converted into friends. But the thing which 
specially struck my attention in that particular 
number of the little paper was the story of the 
experience of one of the graduates of the school, 
which he sends back to the principal in a letter. 
The young man went out into a country region in 
the autumn to begin a school where there was no 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



123 



school-house nor school organization. For several 
weeks the teaching was done in a room which was 
a dining-room and lodging-room and kitchen, yet 
sometimes there were fifty scholars. But in six 
weeks he had managed, with a little help, to build 
a school-house, for which the forests around fur- 
nished ample material. And this is the way he 
tells the story of the building and its uses: "I had 
to skin most of the logs myself and help lay them 
up, help get out the board timber and get the 
boards, help buy the lumber, and had to pick 
nearly one-fourth of the nails out of an ash-bed, 
where a cotton-gin house had recently burned 
down. The house was without heater or chimney; 
but we made a fire in the yard, and gladly turned 
first one and then the other side to it, when it got 
too cold in the house. I spoke to the people there 
one night in each week last month, and feel satis- 
fied that much good was done. I have organized a 
Sunday-school there, which has about fifty mem- 
bers, most of whom are in earnest. Many of them 
are parents. We have had singing, too; and I 
have talked to them on Sunday afternoons, when 
sometimes nearly a hundred people would turn out. 
I have thought of you and your Commencement 
address to us very often. I thought of [what you 
said of] Emerson's looking for himself. But I 
found it necessary for me not to look for, but to 
lose myself. To do this was a hard task. 'Tis not 
a perfect accomplishment yet. With this one thing 
accomplished, I can climb above any other barrier." 



124 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



There is a man who has learned how to adjust 
himself to nature's provision and laws for human 
needs ; and so he has got at the heart of the Infi- 
nite Bounty. He does not sit down to lament over 
the afflicted condition of his people, he does not 
stop to ask why the Almighty does not do this or 
that for their relief; but he takes hold of the forces 
of the Eternal himself, and wields them for his 
people's good. In the presence of obstacles that 
would daunt the spirit of most of us, he finds a 
way to the Infinite Beneficence and makes himself 
its agent for his people's redemption. 

Abundant justification may also be found in 
human experience for the modern lessons of the 
remaining parts of our verse. The parable of a 
host anointing his guest with oil signifies, as we 
have seen, the bestowal of something beyond the 
needful supplies for physical existence. It means 
the rendering of honor and regard by personal ser- 
vice. It recognizes among the obligations of hos- 
pitality not merely the satisfaction of bodily wants, 
but the sentiments and amenities of affection. It 
means something that touches the heart and solaces 
the spirit and honors the person. These are the 
refinements of hospitality, like the perfume and 
beauty of flowers. They may be costly, but there 
are needs of human beings that are higher than the 
stomach's appetites. Jesus, notwithstanding his 
ready rebuke for all insincere and ostentatious dis- 
play, and his compassion for the wants of the poor, 
allowed the woman to break the precious box of 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



125 



ointment to express her personal regard, though 
the ointment might have been sold and the price 
given to the poor. There are other hungers be- 
sides that of the flesh, — hungers of mind and 
heart, which measure the advance of the higher 
civilization. And these, too, the Eternal Power, 
under which they are developed, supplies. The 
Infinite Bounty covers the needs of heart and 
soul no less than those of the body. Nature serves 
man's physical wants; but she does it with an in- 
finite beauty and grace, that gradually charms the 
savage in him into civilization, and causes the 
brute instinct to blossom into soul. 

Nature, indeed, in this and in manifold ways, is 
man's constant servant; and hence we are literally 
correct when we say that the Eternal Power, which 
works in and through nature, is man's servant as 
well as educator. A few years ago a scientific 
man wrote an essay to show the probability that at 
some time the sun's heat might be mechanically 
applied for the pumping of water from underneath 
the sands of the great deserts of Africa, thus fertil- 
izing them into rich productiveness. And thus, 
he added, that great luminary that has been wor- 
shipped as a god would become man's servant. A 
god transformed into a servant seemed a startling 
suggestion. And yet the Eternal Power whom all 
enlightened minds worship as Deity, the God of 
reason and science, is now and constantly the ser- 
vant of man. If the earth in any way serves our 
human wants, if the sun, by which we live and 



126 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



move and have our being and exert all our power, 
serves us, if the forces of nature, through the air 
we breathe, the electricity we put to use, and the 
gravity that holds us to the globe, serve us, then 
a fortiori must the Infinite and Eternal Power, of 
which earth and sun and all nature's forces are but 
a partial manifestation, be our servant. "A serv- 
ing Deity ! " This thought which our verse sug- 
gests may well command our attention a little 
longer. And, if there be apprehension lest this 
conception of Deity shall be wanting in the attri- 
bute of "parental love," where, let me ask, shall 
we find the highest expression and demonstration of 
love? In that effervescence of passional emotion 
which, within the breast of its possessor, self- 
regarding, bubbles and sings of its own felicity? 
or is it in that other-regarding feeling which at 
once goes forth in acts of service for the being that 
is loved? When does a mother show the supreme 
devotion of her affection? In those moments of 
rapture when she hugs her children and devours 
them with kisses and wants to lavish sweetmeats 
upon them? or is it in the long hours and weary- 
ing days and lengthening years, when, forgetful of 
self, she is spending her energies, her very life, in 
serving their manifold wants, on her spent care and 
strength carrying them safely through the various 
crises of their ignorance and weakness, though 
often having to exchange the rapture of personal 
tenderness for the disciplines of that larger, wiser 
law which is no respecter of persons? "Love," 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



127 



said the old writer, " is the keeping of the laws of 
wisdom." Nor should this proposition of science 
startle Christendom, which, through all its cen- 
turies, has been taught that the infinite God 
humbled himself and came down to earth, and took 
the form of a servant in Jesus of Nazareth, who 
washed his disciples 1 feet. Only the service is 
not through one man only but through manifold 
men, and not through humanity only, but through 
nature. Service and honor are rendered to man 
by the Eternal, to the end that in man there is 
created a being who, in turn, honors and serves and 
carries forward the Eternal purpose. Sang another 
of the Hebrew poets: "When I consider the 
heavens, the work of thy power, and the stars 
which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou 
art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou 
carest for him? Yet thou hast made him little 
lower than the gods; thou has crowned him with 
glory and honor; thou has given him dominion 
over the work of thy hands." What the Psalmist 
here says of man being invested with dignity and 
honor as a sub-ruler in the affairs of earth, holding 
a responsible part of the divine sovereignty, a 
rational philosophy and science would indorse 
to-day. 

And, finally, the bounty of nature overruns all 
actual needs. The Eternal measures out its sup- 
plies by no stinted hand. Man may regulate pro- 
duction and distribution, but Nature will fill his 
cup to overflowing if he will let her. He himself 



128 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



must watch against her wastes in some parts of 
the globe, and in other parts his skill must do 
the work of climate. But Nature's storehouse of 
various bounty for man's use is inexhaustible. 
What luxury of power and of life on which he may 
draw! What wealth of mineral and chemical re- 
sources! What teeming fields and forests in the 
vegetable world! How the seeds are scattered on 
the winds and storms ! Even the birds of the air 
are their carriers and sowers. They may fall by 
the wayside, or among thorns, or on stony places; 
but Nature provides against disaster by the extrava- 
gance of her sowing. Beneath the sea, on Alpine 
snows, over hoary rocks, is wrought the miracle 
of the all-abounding principle of life. I picked 
flowers last June which were wedged close between 
the rocks at the top of Pike's Peak. Make a ruin; 
and, let it be her own or man's, Nature will grad- 
ually weave her green mantle gracefully around it. 
Go into wilds, where man's foot has seldom trod 
nor his eyes gazed, and behold there, unseen be- 
fore, unknown, richness on richness and beauty on 
beauty, of the living wonder. "Beauty is its own 
excuse for being," and life ever transcends the 
powers of death. It is the overflowing cup of the 
Infinite Bounty which in wilderness and on plains, 
by the roadside and in our gardens, spills and scat- 
ters the seeds from which comes the beauty that 
charms our eyes and gladdens our hearts. This 
world has much of darkness and evil. It has 
storms of rough trial, and many foes of happiness 



THE OVERFLOWING BOUNTY 



129 



and enemies of life. Yet the Eternal welcomes 
and honors this little storm-tossed earth as a guest 
and friend, and provides for it such a bounty of all 
the things which make for life and light and good- 
ness and gladness that these finally may master all 
their foes, and overcome the trial and the evil and 
the darkness. The word "bounty" is apt to sug- 
gest only material good things. But the Eternal 
Bounty covers all realms, all needs of human life, 
in its highest ranges. What inexhaustible riches 
of truth to reward and delight the eager intellect! 
What joyous aesthetic gratifications for the eye with 
a cultured mind behind it! What opportunities 
for affection and goodness in which the heart may 
revel ! Have you not seen some persons whose 
characters have an inexhaustible radiance of good- 
ness, like the sparkling of perpetual fountains, and 
whose daily life is an overflowing bounty of sun- 
shine from the soul? 

When I wrote, a disappointing spring day turned 
to a cold, heavy rain. But the rain had not wholly 
ceased when I heard the sparrows bravely chirrup- 
ing, and the robins singing their evening hymns. 
Despite the rough storm they found the joy of 
existence. So the human soul, through the stress 
and storm of life, may so adjust itself to the ways 
of the Eternal as to learn the harmonies of benefi- 
cent service, and thus break into the harmonies 
of joy and of song. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



VI. 

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN 
DESTINY. 

" Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
life : and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 

In this exalted rapture of perfect confidence and 
hope, the sentiment of the Twenty-third Psalm 
reaches both its logical and poetical climax. Each 
successive verse of the six has expressed some defi- 
nite expansion or rise of the poet's emotional 
thought ; but thus far everything has been included 
within the limits of actual experience. The pres- 
ent tense has prevailed. Jehovah is the good and 
all-powerful shepherd. He leadeth into the green 
pastures and by the restful waters. He guideth in 
the straight paths of safety. In the deadly valley 
of shadows it is his power that supports and com- 
forts. And, in the very presence of hostile forces, 
his friendly service overflows in bountiful provi- 
sion. The Psalmist has spoken from the basis of 
experience, and not, so far as appears in the text 
of his song, from any a priori theological assump- 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 3 1 

tions. His appeal has been simply to common 
facts for testing the truth of his patriotic and as- 
suring declarations. "Look around you," is the 
implied injunction of his words: "Behold how 
Jehovah is doing all these things for his people." 
And then, from this basis of experience, the poet 
turns, with serene and perfect assurance, to face 
the future; for (this is his inference) the same 
bountiful guidance and care can certainly be de- 
pended on for continuance. That is his sole rea- 
soning. It is the simplicity of the child's logic. 
And yet it is the solid foundation on which all 
science rests: the order of things observed in the 
natural world in the past can be depended on in the 
future. The sun in the glory of its power may be 
expected to rise to-morrow because it has risen, by 
calculable law, in innumerable yesterdays. It is 
by a similar mental procedure that the Psalmist 
rises, in this triumphant ending of his paean to 
Jehovah as a Shepherd, to the exulting exclama- 
tion: " Surely goodness and mercy will follow me 
all the days of my life: and I shall dwell in the 
house of Jehovah forever." 

I may say in passing that the common version 
stands in no urgent need of revision here for the 
sake of accuracy, except that it would be better 
to transpose the auxiliaries "shall " and "will " in 
the two divisions of the verse. The Hebrew word 
translated "mercy," I may add, is the same word 
that is often rendered by the richer phrase "lov- 
ing-kindness"; and the word translated "good- 



132 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



ness " carries from its primary root a meaning of 
outward prosperity and good fortune. And this 
latter idea is one of the rhetorical links which 
connects the verse back with the immediately 
preceding verse depicting Jehovah's bounty. An- 
other and more obvious link is in the expression 
" house of Jehovah," — "I shall dwell in the house 
of the Lord for ever." The preceding verse had 
given a picture of the gracious and bounteous hos- 
pitality of a householder to a guest. That thought 
is now expanded and carried forward to the se- 
curity and beneficence which must be enjoyed by 
one who is to dwell, not transiently, but for all 
time, in Jehovah's house. (I have previously ex- 
plained that the Psalm is one of steps or degrees, 
each verse rising upon some suggestive thought 
of the preceding.) And these two heightened 
thoughts, to which I have just referred, make the 
steps by which the poet ascends to his final and 
sublime contemplation of a beneficent Providence 
unbounded by time and including the whole future 
of Israel in its scope. To generalize the lesson 
of the verse, we may say that it consists of these 
twin ideas: the Eternal Goodness and its as- 
surances for human destiny. 

But neither the Hebrew poet nor the Hebrew 
theologian was accustomed to regard such ideas as 
these in any abstract or metaphysical fashion. 
The Hebrew religion kept close to nature and 
close to this world. Even in its childlike faith 
in the supernatural, the supernatural agencies were 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 33 

conceived in very human and earthly form. If the 
Hebrews talked of eternity, it was an eternity not 
severed nor distinguished from but including time. 
If they thought of the continuance of human exist- 
ence, it was existence lengthened out indefinitely 
on this earth. In the very verse we are consider- 
ing the phrase translated "for ever" meant literally 
" length of days." It was only a more intensified 
form of the expression rendered in the first part of 
the verse by the words "all the days of my life"; 
and a literal rendering of the last half of the verse 
would be "I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah to 
length of days." It is the same term which occurs 
in Proverbs as representing one of the gifts of 
Wisdom: "Length of days is in her right hand." 
Yet this phrase seems to have come nearer than any 
other in the canonical Hebrew Scriptures to taking 
the place of the word for eternal duration in the 
Christian Scriptures. In truth (as shown in the 
fourth lecture), for the greater part of the time of 
their national existence, the Hebrews 'manifested 
no specific belief in the doctrine of immortality, 
at least in the Christian sense of it. 

To the Hebrew, moreover, the earth was a goodly 
world; and he had no unwholesome, impatient 
desire to depart from it. Its evils, which he by 
no means ignored, were, he believed, the conse- 
quence of human departure from the law of right- 
eousness. Its destructive forces, its afflictive ills, 
its deaths and terrors, were to him the penalty 
for violating Jehovah's commandments. Thus the 



134 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



garden of Eden, he believed, had been lost, and 
all after woes had fallen on mankind. But still 
Jehovah was regarded as no implacable ruler. Let 
the people only return to his commandments and 
keep them, and he would abundantly pardon. 
With long life would he satisfy them and show 
them his salvation. He would deliver them from 
all their distresses, and cause them to bless his 
name forever. It was not, therefore, because the 
Hebrew was blind to the evils of the world, and 
did not suffer his full share of earthly troubles, 
that he still thought this earth a goodly world. 
In fact, he was always under the harrow of some 
trouble. Yet despite all the evil he could sing, 
" Oh, that men would praise Jehovah for his good- 
ness and for his wonderful works to the children of 
men!" 

It is quite certain, too, that, when the Hebrew 
spoke of the "house of the Lord," he was not 
thinking of a "mansion in the skies." The house 
of the Lord for him meant the holy temple of wor- 
ship. This reference to the house of the Lord is 
one of the evidences which modern criticism has 
pointed out for proof that the Twenty-third Psalm 
was not written by King David, and could not have 
been written by any one until after David's son, 
King Solomon, had built the great temple. Be- 
fore that event the ark of the sacred covenant had 
been sheltered and protected in a tent (or taber- 
nacle), which was transported from place to place. 
But when Solomon built the costly temple, that 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 35 

became by pre-eminence in Israel's view Jehovah's 
house. The sacred covenant was deposited there, 
in a place of safety, as it was believed, for all 
time. There was the innermost Holy of holies of 
the Hebrew faith. To the devout believer the 
solidity and magnificence of the temple became 
symbolic of national stability and prosperity. The 
patriotic sentiments of security and dominion 
mingled with and enhanced the joys of worship for 
those who entered there for that sacred service. 
To the faithful ones of Israel the act of worship 
in this great temple was the transcendent act of 
human life. There as nowhere else they came into 
the immediate presence of Jehovah, — -or so they 
believed and felt. There they acknowledged his 
power and received assurances of his aid and bless- 
ing. Felicitous, indeed, they thought, must be 
the lot of those who dwelt there as chosen servants 
of Jehovah for performing the manifold offices of 
the sacred place. Some such picture as this of 
the grandeur of the outward temple and of its holy 
service doubtless presented itself to the Psalmist's 
poetic vision. Yet, doubtless, also, it symbolized 
to him, as it would to the most spiritually intelli- 
gent among his contemporaries, not, indeed, all 
that finer culmination of the worshipful attitude 
which is u in spirit and in truth, without refer- 
ence to any technicalities of place and time, but at 
least an idea of a constant nearness to Jehovah's 
presence through acts of righteousness, and of that 
service of him which is rendered by the clean heart 



136 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



and the just deed. For, however magnificent in 
its surroundings and formalities was the outward 
worship of the Hebrews, they had prophets who de- 
nounced the oblations and prayers and praises, 
even of this sacred temple, as an abomination and 
mockery, unless the worshippers brought justice 
and mercy and a contrite heart among their offer- 
ings. And no religion, more clearly and strongly 
than the Hebrew, has ever set forth obedience to 
the law of righteousness as a requisite condition, 
individually and nationally, of acceptance with 
Deity and of achieving all the most desirable 
objects of human existence. In righteousness, and 
in righteousness only, was the way of salvation, of 
individual and national health, of prosperity and 
confidence, of strength and peace: yes, righteous- 
ness was the very law and condition of life itself 
and of all life's noblest felicities. This is the 
constant injunction of Hebrew Proverb and Prophet 
and Psalm. And the connection of righteousness 
(or right conduct) with the forces of life is one of 
the prominent points in modern science and scien- 
tific ethics, as was specially shown in the third 
lecture. 

These two great thoughts of the Hebrew faith 
unite, then, to make the final climax of this 
Twenty-third Psalm : first, Jehovah, the eternal 
power, is a good power to be depended upon per- 
petually; second, in that Goodness is full assur- 
ance of a good destiny for man through a life 
allied with the very life and power of Jehovah. 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY I37 

Now, in this statement of these two root- 
thoughts I believe I have put nothing which the 
Hebrew singer would not himself have accepted. 
Into what details of theological or mythological 
belief and expression, fitting the intelligence of 
the time, he might have carried these thoughts, or 
how he might have dressed them in the fashion of 
his age and race, is another question, and one 
which we have no occasion now to consider. Our 
question is whether these root-thoughts themselves 
can be justified in the light of modern intelligence. 
What has the scientific philosophy which is in 
vogue in this closing decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury to say with regard to the validity of these two 
ideas? That is the question with which we are 
most concerned. 

And, first, it is remarkable how little change is 
needed in the statement of these ideas, as just 
made, to make the statement itself seem modern. 
In the place of the Hebrew appellation "Je- 
hovah," let us (as I have before asked you in these 
lectures) put the English phrase which is its near- 
est equivalent, "The Eternal," and we have a 
statement which might be taken from a religious 
treatise written from the standpoint of the most 
advanced scientific philosophy. Put still more suc- 
cinctly, our statement might then stand thus: 
"The Eternal is to be depended upon as a power 
for goodness, and in that goodness man has assur- 
ance of a good destiny." 

And, in the next place, you will not fail to note 



138 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



that here are precisely the two great modern prob- 
lems of religion, — the problem of God and the 
problem of immortality. For it is no secret to the 
reading and thinking portion of mankind that these 
fundamental problems of religion and philosophy 
have been opened afresh to-day as the result of 
advancing science in every direction, and it is not 
rationally probable that questions thus opened will 
ever be settled again in precisely the old way. 

Not in the old way; and yet I maintain that 
these questions will be rationally settled in a way 
that will vindicate and confirm these two great and 
essential points of religious faith, — the Goodness 
of the Eternal, and for man a good and worthy 
destiny. And these are the two important points 
now to be considered. 

As to the first, I frankly admit and affirm that, 
unless it can be legitimately maintained that the 
Eternal Energy of the universe, which science 
recognizes as the Source of all phenomena, is pur- 
posive in its action and toward results intelligible 
and beneficent, we shall have no Deity left worthy 
of human adoration or capable of imposing or 
being the source of any law, intellectual or moral, 
which man could or should obey. If the Infinite 
and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed, 
and in whose presence we ever are, is merely 
power, — power working blindly, wildly, reck- 
lessly, at mere chance and hazard, unconditioned by 
anything corresponding to intelligence and benevo- 
lence, — then it is not a Power which man's intel- 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 39 

ligent and moral nature could or ought to regard 
with feelings of admiration and affection. Nor, if 
the Infinite Energy manifested an intelligible aim, 
but no moral quality, could it attract the worship 
of the human conscience and heart. If it were to 
manifest an intelligible aim directed by positive 
malevolence, then we should have a world gov- 
erned by diabolism, but no Deity to whom man 
would have any occasion to sing praises or direct 
his aspirations. Man might fear such a being, and 
try to evade his malevolent power; but he could 
not count it a blessing to dwell with such a being 
forever. The only Deity worthy of the name, the 
only Deity, in fine, whose existence is worthy of 
belief, must have the quality of goodness. If the 
Eternal and Infinite Energy of the universe, of 
which science talks, does not have that attribute, 
let us have done with it forever as a name or sub- 
stitute for Deity. If the Eternal Power cannot be 
seen and believed to be a good power, then let us 
candidly confess that the world is orphaned of 
its God. 

The question, then, is, Can the conception of 
Deity furnished us by the scientific philosophy of 
the day meet the test of this requirement? And 
I answer, unhesitatingly, confidently, in the affirm- 
ative. I make this affirmative answer, fully aware 
of the long and tragic list of evils which may be 
drawn up against the world of nature and against 
mankind. I remember John Stuart Mill's terrific 
indictment of what he calls nature's acts of de- 



140 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

monic cruelty, — acts of torturing, maiming, and 
killing, for doing the like of which society im- 
prisons or hangs human beings. Our popular jour- 
nalistic reporters to-day write of the cruel waves 
which suck down to death in our harbors a man or 
child, and of the merciless tornado or the demon of 
fire or flood, that are somewhere slaughtering our 
fellow-creatures by the scores, in every month of 
the year, even doing it in the season when Nature 
is most active in weaving her "coronation robes" 
of living beauty. Thus even the very terms of 
these newspaper writers are accusations of pitiless 
cruelty against the power of Nature. And con- 
sidering her smiling aspects even while she slays, 
they might compare her to Rome's bloody tyrant, 
who played music while his imperial city burned. 
But, despite all this which can be charged against 
Nature's forces, I can still say, with the Hebrew 
Psalmist, that the Eternal Power is not power only, 
but has the moral attribute of goodness. I could 
not, however, say this if I regarded material nature 
alone. I might admire and stand in awe before 
the sublime process of the evolution of the natural 
world, as science declares it, from the primal neb- 
ulous fire-mist to the sun in the heavens and the 
rose in your gardens, or to the last chrysanthemum 
blossom of the season, that lingers to kiss the snow. 
My imagination would be entranced by the beauty 
everywhere manifest, and often springing from the 
transformation of the ugly and disgusting. In the 
orderly adjustment of part to part, in the grand 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY I4I 

sweep of the forces, in the unchangeable stability 
of the laws, in the slowly evolved, mighty product 
and spectacle such as our eyes now behold in the 
heavens and on the earth, my intellect would cer- 
tainly acknowledge the wondrous evidences of a 
power infinitely greater than, but kindred to, its 
own intelligent activity. But, if nature stopped 
there, if there were nothing further, I might hesi- 
tate to affirm a moral aim of the Power within and 
behind it, or might even deny to the Power a moral 
quality. But nature does not stop there. The 
material world is not the whole of nature, nor 
does physical science cover all the manifestations 
of the Power within and behind nature. In a 
large, scientific sense, man is a part of nature. 
He sprang from her loins. By the same great 
process of evolution whereby the material world 
came into existence man also came, — man, indeed, 
with his early brutalities, his primitive savage 
degradations, his still degrading vices and crimes, 
but man, also, with his moral consciousness, with 
his as yet unmeasured mental and moral capabili- 
ties, with his sublime ideals of rectitude and 
benevolence, with his pure, unselfish aspirations 
and affections, with his capacity for unlimited 
moral and mental progress, — in short, man so en- 
dowed with mental and moral gifts as to be able to 
take up nature's work and carry it forward to ideal 
aims, such as material nature alone, without him, 
would never have achieved. We are not, there- 
fore, to separate man from nature, as if they be- 



142 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

longed to two different and antagonistic worlds. 
This was an ancient view, from which sprang the 
theory of a dual universe fought for by two supreme 
principles, or deities, a good and an evil. But 
to-day it is not a question of two deities or more, 
but of one or none. If science has made any de- 
liverance that is generally accepted, it is that the 
Power within and behind all the manifoldness of 
phenomena is unitary. It is not many, nor two, 
but one. Hence, we have a right to say that, 
whatever of goodness and the possibilities of good- 
ness appear in man, these reflect back their glory 
upon nature's dark ways, and show the whole 
process of evolution to have a moral purport, and 
disclose, moreover, that the Eternal Power within 
and behind the process is working toward a benefi- 
cent result. Whence, indeed, can come the moral 
consciousness of man, with all its sublime actual- 
ities and possibilities, but from that Infinite and 
Eternal Energy from which all things proceed? 
By the highest standards of man's moral faiths, 
aims, achievements, and hopes may we find sugges- 
tion of a measure, though finite and inadequate, 
for the Eternal Goodness. As these are only prod- 
ucts, in that must be their Source and Cause and 
ancestral Kind. 

But this argument would be rounded to better 
completion were the further points made which 
have been developed in one or another of the previ- 
ous lectures, and which I will here only allude to; 
namely, that the Eternal Power, as a rational phi- 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY I43 

losophy gives us the conception to-day, is not to be 
thought of as a being in the skies, policing human 
affairs from a seat of sovereign authority there, and 
saving human beings from disaster by a dispensa- 
tion of special providences, but rather as a power 
organized in the very laws and forces of nature it- 
self and in the mental and moral capabilities of the 
human mind; that the conditions of life are such 
that man must adjust himself to the eternal ener- 
gies and laws, and thereby become a providence 
unto himself, wielding the eternal power for his 
own and others' welfare; that this process of ad- 
justment is educational, developing human faculty 
and character, and making man a responsible agent 
in repressing evil and evolving good in his world; 
and that the Eternal Power, working in and 
through all things, is justified as good because evo- 
lution itself, which is the process of its activity, 
proceeds by the law of amelioration and ascent 
from simple to complex forms of organism, and 
from low to higher and ever higher and fairer 
realms of life. Man, regarded through the long 
ages of history, has advanced in moral perception, 
capacity, and conduct, and is still advancing; 
therefore the Power that has been man's central 
and vital impulsion must be good and not evil. 

At this point I may be asked: "But what of the 
evil impulsions in man? Do not they also come 
from the Eternal Energy from which all things 
proceed, and hence reflect back their dark character 
upon it?" To this I answer, In their original 



144 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



germs these impulsions, like everything else, do 
spring from the Eternal Energy; but in their orig- 
inal form they are void of moral attributes. They 
appear first in the lower animal creatures as in- 
stincts merely of self-nourishment and self-per- 
petuation and preservation. And there they are as 
normal as they are necessary. In primitive man 
these instincts were little removed from their brute 
stage; and in individual man to-day, as in primi- 
tive man, these instincts of self-interest and self- 
gratification have a normal function, especially in 
the earlier years of life. But, since man is also a 
being of rational and moral consciousness, these 
instincts in him come into rightful subjection to 
the higher laws of reason and conscience. And 
they become evil impulsions in him when they re- 
fuse this subjection to the larger and higher law of 
life which the Eternal Power, through the very 
conditions of his creation, has wrought out for 
man. Self-interest is never normally an end in 
itself. It is only an instrumentality for the ac- 
complishment of some universal good. And it is 
of the very essence of the religious and ethical 
consciousness, when it is awakened, to annul all 
interests and gratifications which are bounded by 
self, and to subject all the self-seeking propensities 
to the service of the general benefit or of some uni- 
versal aim. In his capacity as a free agent, free 
within certain limits, man can pursue the ends of 
sheer selfish gratification. But, so far as he does 
so, he is irreligious, immoral. He unmans him- 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY I45 

self, and resuscitates in his nature the cast-off 
brute, only in worse form, from which the Eternal 
Power had been lifting him for a higher possibil- 
ity. So far from acting under an impulsion of the 
Eternal, he has transmuted what the Eternal once 
made good into evil, and for consequence loses 
the conscious power of the Eternal and the godlike 
from his nature, and sinks back under the sway 
of carnal and material law, toward the meagre 
existence of the brute and the clod; and thus he 
subjects the Eternal Goodness to another effort 
to lift his existence again to the capabilities of 
manhood. 

There is, moreover, one additional consideration 
on this phase of our theme on which I wish to 
dwell for a moment or two. Our verse says, 
"Goodness and mercy shall follow us." Perhaps 
the writer would have said "attend us" or "lead 
us " just as readily. Yet, in the use of the word 
"follow," there is a peculiar suggestiveness. In 
the midst of life's ills, they are sometimes so dark 
and distressing that, at the time, we. cannot see 
nor feel the overshadowing goodness and mercy. 
There are calamities in which we cannot say, and 
are not called to say, that all is for the best be- 
cause Eternal Power has so willed it. The Eter- 
nal has not willed to drown your child, nor to 
sweep away a city by flood, nor to make a holocaust 
of a town's population. The Power has simply 
not interfered; and it is better, on the whole, that 
the great natural laws of cause and effect, which 



I46 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

are pregnant with benefit for man, should take 
their course than that a life should here and there 
be saved from violent death, and you and I be 
spared from grief. Yet even then the goodness 
and mercy of the Eternal are not wanting, though 
often they may follow so far behind our suffering 
that we may fail to see them. They are never to 
be looked for in the suffering itself, but in the way 
we meet it. The substance of character is such 
that it may be nourished from sources which seem 
most unpromising. Trials that threaten to destroy 
may strengthen its fortitude. Temptations re- 
sisted, vices overcome, may be converted into 
moral vigor. Sorrow and tears, however bitter to 
bear, may beget a tenderer humanity and a more 
spiritual loveliness. There is no distress which 
can befall us for which there is not a following 
mercy in the very laws and forces whereby charac- 
ter grows and is ennobled; no wound made in our 
natures, whether by moral transgression or outward 
calamity, but that from the greater nature that 
holds us and of which we are born there begin to 
move toward us, and toward the very place of 
bruise, the forces of healing and restoration. 
Only we must hold our minds and wills in readi- 
ness to receive and co-operate with the good intent. 
We are free, within certain natural limits, to walk 
our individual ways and to open or close the 
avenues of beneficial influence to our hearts; yet, 
on whatever way we walk, and whatever evils we 
encounter, there is in the very laws of being and 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY I47 

life a reserve force of goodness and mercy follow- 
ing us, ready at our first beckoning gesture to come 
up to our side, and to help us transform the ills 
into some kind of moral benefit, and to lead us 
ever toward larger vision and higher attainments of 
character. 

And this same Power that has been patiently 
working during a past eternity and through all 
kinds of conditions for and toward goodness may 
be trusted to have in store for man a worthy moral 
destiny. Whether that destiny is to include a per- 
sonal immortality there is no science as yet, using 
that word in its common acceptation, which either 
affirms or denies. We are here left to the argu- 
ment of the most rational probability. And some- 
times, when there comes over me an impression of 
the inconceivable magnitude and orderly grandeur 
of this universe, of its indescribable splendor and 
beauty, of the eternity during which it has been in 
process of creation, of the infinite transformations 
and interactions of its forces, of its manifold 
realms of life, material, mental, affectional, moral, 
spiritual, — organism rising upon organism and life 
upon life to ever complexer nature and finer con- 
summation, — and when I think of man as the crown 
of this ineffably sublime process of creation on this 
earth, and as endowed with the faculty and respon- 
sibility of carrying the creative task forward in 
this world to some nobler issue, he being a veri- 
table and conscious incarnation and agent of the 
Eternal Power that 



I48 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

" Step by step lifts bad to good, 
Without halting, without rest, 
Lifting Better up to Best," — 

when I think of man, honored by such a capacity, 
mission, and service, I am almost ready to say: 
"That is enough: to fulfil that function well is 
adequate dignity and destiny; no other immortal- 
ity can be asked for than that which accumulates 
from personal goodness in the aggregate welfare of 
the race, and which seemed to suffice even the 
womanly heart of George Eliot, when she wrote of 

< The choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence ; 



In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
To vaster issues.' " 

Were that to be all, it would yet seem a worthy 
destiny for individual man. He must then live so 
well as to greaten and gladden the mind and heart 
of the human race for all time after him. His rec- 
titude would be a necessity for continuing the 
unbroken and beneficent succession of the all- 
abounding and ascending life. The individual 
might perish, but even then the life that was in 
him would go on. The old leaf on a tree, which 
the new bud pushes off, we may imagine even to 
welcome the new, since the same life has gone into 
it to serve a perpetuated purpose. So man might 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 49 

die with serenity, happy in the ripeness of years to 
give up his own vitality to feed the never-dying 
vitality of his race. And even, — if I may make a 
most daring hypothesis, — even if the human race 
were at some remote period to become extinct, even 
if, as astronomy now says, a world may become 
dead, a sun or star go out of existence, we may yet 
conceive of a universe so vast and majestic in its 
proportions that the death of a man or of a world 
may have no more effect on the vast and ceaseless 
procession of beneficent life than does the fall of a 
leaf from its tree when it has fulfilled its function 
in serving the unfolding, ceaseless, vital Law. 

But, again, when I think of the countless aeons 
which were spent by the Eternal Power in produc- 
ing a being capable of such service as this which 
man at his best can perform, when I think of the 
world-struggles and birth-pains of which he is the 
product, I am reluctant to believe that the consum- 
mate flower of creation on this planet, the moral 
personality of man, is after a few score years of 
existence to be extinguished forever, blown out 
like the flame of a candle by a whiff of your breath. 
And then there rises before me, with massive 
strength the more rational conclusion that some- 
where, somehow, this responsible vicegerent of the 
Eternal Power will continue consciously to live 
and work in this universe, which is the house of 
the Eternal. 

Nor am I troubled by the problem of the how 
and the where. The old mythological heavens and 



150 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

hells and stories of physical resurrections we may 
regard as outlawed by modern criticism. Nor do 
the alleged claims of Spiritualism, though I have 
no prejudice against them, appear to me to have 
so sifted facts from personal illusions and merce- 
nary frauds as to avail much before the tribunal of 
science. But there is no more difficulty in con- 
ceiving of a new and more ethereal body for the 
human personality after the death and hopeless dis- 
solution of the present body than there would be in 
conceiving a priori of hundreds of things which 
science has made familiar facts. We should never 
a priori believe it possible for the butterfly to come 
forth from the grub, nor for the sun's heat to be 
motor of all energy and life on the earth, nor for a 
tiny seed, almost invisible, to possess within it a 
principle of life capable of drawing elements from 
earth and air and moisture, and translating them 
into a gigantic tree, with all its beauty of foliage 
and blossom and its bounty of fruit. Just consider, 
for a moment, that unique kind of matter, the 
ether-atmosphere, which, as science assures us, 
interpenetrates our denser air and all the inter- 
planetary and interstellar spaces. It is not visi- 
ble, yet makes for us all other things visible. It 
is not tangible nor measurable. No chemical 
skill has resolved it into its constituent elements. 
Science has nevertheless inferred its existence as a 
necessary condition for transmitting light and heat 
from the sun to its planets. It is the highway of 
communication between the worlds. But it may be 



ETERNAL GOODNESS AND HUMAN DESTINY 1 5 I 

more than that. Here is one kind of matter actu- 
ally occupying to some extent the same space with 
another kind of matter. Why, then, may we not 
here have the material for another body developing 
within this body of flesh, which may be the cause 
of some of the strange psychic phenomena now 
seeking explanation? Here may be the fabric for 
the shining garments of our dead, — our beloved 
ones literally rising from death clothed with bodies 
of light. 

Of course, I am not pressing this hypothesis for 
belief. It may seem to most persons wildly vis- 
ionary. My only point is that, however improba- 
ble an hypothesis may seem a priori, it is not 
therefore to be dismissed as impossible. Wonder- 
ful as such a consummation of human life would 
be, I aver that in itself it would be no greater 
marvel than is the scientific fact that not a breath 
is drawn by any living creature on this earth, not 
a blade of grass grows, not a flower blooms, not 
a movement is made nor any kind of power exerted 
here, but that the engine which does it all is in 
that sun up yonder ninety-five millions of miles 
away. And the connection between the engine 
there and its work here is by the waves of this 
invisible ocean of ether! I am only urging that, 
on this great problem of immortality, it behooves 
us to be very modest not only in our affirmations, 
but in our denials, — very modest, yet very expect- 
ant. There is a theological dogmatism which 
greatly obstructs the way of truth; and there is a 



152 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



credulity that is the root of superstition. But 
there is an incredulity which is as hostile to truth's 
progress as is superstition or dogmatism, — an in- 
credulity that is the dogmatism of negation, and 
closes the avenues of the mind to the very ap- 
proaches of truth. 

But, in whatever form this problem of man's 
future destiny is to be settled, his present duty 
remains the same. In some shape our lives and 
their results must survive death. Somewhere in 
the house of the Eternal, our influence, our work, 
our spirit, or our still living personality will con- 
tinue for helping to shape eternal issues. In 
either case our duty now is to do the best service 
possible for this world's good, and to attain the 
utmost possible nobility of character and conduct, 
and then to wait serenely and patiently, and also, 
if it be possible, with the glow of large expectancy 
in our eyes, for death to lift the veil and reveal the 
after destiny. And in either case, too, we shall 
dwell still in the house of the Eternal, to "share," 
as said our greatest American prophet and psalm- 
ist, "the will and the immensity and the immortal- 
ity of the First Cause." No rightly living soul 
need ever fear to be exiled at death to an utterly 
strange country. Moral realms are not separated 
by space nor time nor outward condition. Who- 
ever lives a life of righteousness on whatever 
planet dwells now in heaven and inhabiteth and 
enricheth eternity. 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION. 



The modern scientific doctrine of Evolution, in 
its teachings and implications concerning world- 
formation, has given us a new trinity, which, I 
venture to say, will play even a more important 
part in the religious thinking of the future than 
the theological doctrine of the Trinity has played 
in the past history of Christendom. 

The three constituent elements of the Trinity of 
Evolution are Power, Intelligence, Goodness; con- 
sidering the various manifestations of the creative 
World-energy, we are in a condition, I think, now 
to affirm on scientific grounds that there can be 
no adequate explanation of all the phenomena of 
the world without implying that each of these 
three elements must be an inherent attribute of the 
creative Energy. Of course, there is hardly need 
to-day to add, in any intelligent assembly, that 
modern science does not allow us to conceive of 
creation as beginning or ending six thousand or 
even six hundred thousand years ago, or as being at 
any time a finished process. The scientific theory 
is that creation is a continuous process, that pro- 
ductive forces which were operative in the universe 
six thousand or six hundred thousand years ago are 
operative to-day, that the book of genesis in nature 



154 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



is an unending one, and, further, that all finite 
existences known to us, from atom to animalcule 
and from animalcule to man, are linked in one 
organic creative process, — 

" A subtle chain of countless rings 
The next unto the farthest brings ; " — 

so that we cannot scientifically or logically separate 
man from the process of cosmical creation, nor, in 
determining the attributes of the creative World- 
energy, leave the attributes of humanity out of 
account. Whatever is in the product must exist 
in some elemental form in the Source or Cause. 
Hence, in any question concerning a world-plan or 
world-purpose, man, with all his immense moral 
capacities and possibilities, must be included as a 
most important part of the answer. 

There have been some philosophers, as well as 
common people, who are not wise philosophers, 
who doubt whether the world of nature below man 
gives evidence of any moral law, of any beneficent 
purpose. They count up the internecine strifes 
among the animal races, the bitter struggles for 
existence, the sufferings, cruelties, and destruc- 
tions everywhere rife in nature; and then they ask 
in a tone of triumph, If there be a just and merci- 
ful Deity, why does he not stop this painful and 
merciless animal conflict? And why does he afflict 
human beings with unavoidable cruel calamities 
from nature's violence? But all these objectors 
seem to me to be still entangled with the old con- 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



155 



ception of Deity as an almighty artificer, who 
created the world by a few original strokes six 
thousand years ago, and set it in motion as some- 
thing apart from himself. They have not really 
grasped the scientific conception of a continuous 
World-energy, which has not yet ceased its crea- 
tive work nor reached its goal, of a World-energy 
that is involved and identified with all present 
forces for organizing and sustaining life, and is re- 
vealing its attributes and aims in all the manifold 
phenomena, movements, and progress of human 
thought and conscience as well as in the world of 
material nature. These objectors are really sitting 
in judgment on a being who is the creation of 
human brains in a past and ignorant age, — a mere 
fragment of a Deity. But whence, I ask, that very 
sense of mercy and justice which boldly judges 
nature's violence? Whence that human pity and 
intelligence which attempt to improve on nature's 
work? They are born with man of the very power 
that is the mainspring of nature's movements. 
Man is himself nature's child. He fulfils her aim, 
reveals her purpose; and all that he has of intel- 
ligence, conscience, goodness, all that he has of 
moral faculty and hope, is to be credited back to 
the motive-power that connects man with nature in 
one continuous process of creation. No evidence 
drawn from any isolated portion of the known uni- 
verse, nor from a limited section of time, nor from 
any mere fragment of a creative process which even 
we see to have neither beginning nor end, can be 



I56 THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 

adequate for a decision against the character of a 
sovereign Energy admitted to be eternal in its 
dominion and work. 

It is from these large premises that the problem 
of the character of Deity must be approached; and 
it is from a survey as nearly universal as human 
knowledge will admit, it is from a study of the 
great trend of things from the beginning of man's 
knowledge of the forces of the universe and of 
human history up to the present moment, — compar- 
ing forces with results, seeing the character of 
causes in their consequences, tracing the evidences 
of advance and ascent along the courses of life from 
the primitive organic cell to the brain of a Plato 
and the heart of a Jesus, — it is from such a com- 
prehensive survey as this that modern science en- 
ables us to affirm of the world's creative process 
that trinity of attributes which I have named 
Power, Intelligence, Goodness. 

Of these attributes there is one of which no sane 
human being ever doubts. The evidences of power 
— of power above human power — are omnipresent. 
They are conspicuous on every side. They press 
upon the human senses in overwhelming array. 
These evidences of power in the universe above 
man and before man we can never escape. By day, 
by night, in joy or pain, in life or death, we are 
made conscious that we intimately touch and de- 
pend upon some Reality of existence mightier and 
older than ourselves or than the human race. It 
was the sense of this Power that first bowed primi- 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



157 



tive man in worship. It is the consciousness of 
this Reality above and more than ourselves that 
founded religious institutions, that built this house, 
and that has brought us to this house this morning, 
or that formed the habit of coming thither. Of 
this first constituent of the Trinity of Evolution, 
therefore, there is no need I should speak further. 
The evidence of it is almost too convincing, for it 
comes not always gently. It not only charms us in 
the rose and the grass and the orderly procession of 
the seasons, but it rushes in the deadly tornado, it 
heaves the ocean to destructive fury; it sends a 
tremor through the solid earth and bursts it 
asunder, burying in its yawning chasms cities and 
their inhabitants; it belches fire and ashes and 
death from the volcano's mouth. 

But mere cosmical power alone could not hold 
intelligent man in the attitude of worship. Primi- 
tive man might have prostrated himself before nat- 
ure's violent forces in sheer terror; but, as soon as 
the human mind developed an intelligence suffi- 
cient for controlling and using such natural forces 
as came within its dominion, only Power intelli- 
gible in method could receive its real homage. 
The human mind may stand in awe before the de- 
structive calamities which sometimes ensue in this 
era of civilization from the breaking away from 
human control of those natural forces which have 
been harnessed to the service of man ; but the very 
awe leads him to inquire by what act of omission 
or commission of his own that intelligent guidance 



i 5 8 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



was lost, and then how he may supply a remedy 
against a repetition of such disasters. What the 
human mind renders its homage to is not sheer 
power with no guidance but chance, not blind, 
reckless fatality, but power that works in the 
grooves of law and method to a calculable end. 
And this is true not only of the natural forces 
which man has learned to control to his own uses, 
but of that omnipresent World-energy which is the 
force within and behind all forces. Sometimes 
this almighty energy may seem to us to have es- 
caped all grooves of method, and its end may be 
unintelligible to us, but, in the main, it works 
and has ever worked in ways of orderly sequence 
which respond so fully to man's own intelligence 
that he has a right to assume that the rule controls 
the apparent exceptions. Indeed, in view of the 
intimate connection between life and the constancy 
of nature's methods, it is safe to say that no race 
of intelligent beings, no species like mankind, 
could ever have been developed in a universe whose 
powers and forces were subject to infinite chance 
and caprice. Man has risen to his own intelli- 
gence, and developed a civilization which means 
largely a progressive, intelligent control of the 
forces of nature, only because he had an intelli- 
gible world to deal with. 

I stood one day last summer on a lofty mountain- 
top, with still loftier peaks all around me and 
fertile valleys lying at the mountain's foot. On 
every hand were evidences of mighty Power. 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



159 



What gigantic primeval force has lifted those rocky 
heights and scooped those valleys? Rough Titans 
of power they were that there laid the foundations 
of the earth and dropped those huge granite 
bowlders down the mountain slopes and over the 
hillsides. Nor man nor beast was there to see, nor 
had any tiniest form of life begun. But modern 
science has read for us the story, and told us that 
that primeval titanic energy is of Protean form; 
that the Power which lifted those mountain heights 
and shaped their sides to the line of beauty and 
impelled those granite bowlders to their lodgement 
is the same Power which, in other phase, clothed 
the mountains with forests and carpeted the valleys 
with grass, and brought in orderly sequence every 
kind of ascending life, the same Power which on 
that Sunday morning, when I worshipped on the 
mountain-top, was still all alive and active around 
me, making the very glory that held my vision, the 
same Power that was blossoming in the roadside 
asters, striving to cover the wounds of mountain 
slides and chasms with verdure, sparkling in the 
waterfall, crowning Mount Washington with a sil- 
very cloud, bordering my very footsteps with the 
charms of color and form in the lichens, mush- 
rooms, and mosses. 

This story of nature's creation and movement 
and life, from the time when the earth first solid- 
ified into continents up to the present moment, is a 
history; there is a regular sequence of events, ac- 
tivities, living things and creatures, an orderly 



l6o THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 

ascent of species with increasing capacities and 
functions, and throughout the whole history an 
advance in fitness of relationship, in symmetry 
of form, in harmony and beauty. Now, wherever 
there are fitness, order, method, harmony, beauty, 
cause joined to its own consequent, there are the 
marks of intelligence. These are the qualities 
that make the world an intelligible world, and 
render it inhabitable by intelligent beings. These 
are the qualities that attract the admiration and 
reverence of intelligent minds. I care little to 
prove that these qualities must be attributes of a 
supreme personal consciousness. It is the quali- 
ties themselves that win my trust and become my 
support and refuge. Somehow, because of the very 
orderliness of their working, I believe, they join in 
the unity of one Power. But it is not the power of 
a mere personal will more than mere material en- 
ergy that I can rationally worship. I can only 
rationally worship those attributes that guide per- 
sonal will to intelligible results. It is before the 
evidences of Intelligence presented in the universe 
that my own intelligence bends in homage. 

But the doctrine of Evolution does not stop with 
a dual Deity. Power and Intelligence do not 
exhaust the attributes of the World-energy. The 
Evolution doctrine discloses to us a world which 
rises from power, through intelligence, to moral 
life. Power intelligibly proceeding to good ends, 
— that is Evolution's motto for the world, I do 
not mean by this that it is legitimate to repeat 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION l6l 

to-day the old argument of beneficent design in the 
realm of material nature. That argument dealt in 
petty details, and would now not always stand the 
test of facts. With regard to individuals, and 
even whole species, the beneficence of natural law 
is not always apparent. In the world of nature 
below man we need not look for any complete evi- 
dence of moral aim. The design in nature which 
science discloses is of a large style. It is adap- 
tation, tendency, organic movement toward great 
and often distant ends. It means strivings, even 
though unconscious of any aim, that result in 
ascent and enrichment of life. It means finer 
species, nicer faculties, more delicate organs, in- 
creased facilities and better modes of living, truer 
intelligence, keener perceptions of the intelligible 
order of things, and more power to cope with and 
use nature's resources. After long ages of these 
upward struggles and strivings of material nature, 
man appeared as their resultant, — a being to a 
large extent self-governing, self-elevating, capable 
of improving upon his own nature both individually 
and in the species. In man the World-energy 
blossomed into moral consciousness; into percep- 
tions of a right and a wrong, and into ability to 
choose and to do the right; into that voluntary rec- 
titude and the love of it which is goodness; into 
pity for error and badness, and into effort to make 
the bad into good and the good ever into a better 
and best; into spiritual aspiration, which seeks 
ever to subordinate material means to intellectual 



1 62 THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 

ends and selfish pleasures to universal good. All 
this part of man is the World-energy itself in its 
moral aspect. Whence, otherwise, could the moral 
consciousness and moral law have had their source? 

" Out from the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old." 

From Power to Intelligence, from Intelligence 
to Goodness, — so has the world-process revealed 
the world-purpose. Power, for its own conserva- 
tion, necessitated an intelligent and intelligible 
order. A system, or rather medley, of chance- 
forces would be mutually destructive. And Intel- 
ligence, for the same reason, must rise to moral 
rectitude in order to hold the line for the best and 
permanent ascent of life. Intelligence itself, as 
soon as adequately developed, makes declaration of 
the principle of justice as the equation of rights 
between men, just as it declares the laws of beauty 
or the unalterable relations between numbers in 
mathematics. So came the Golden Rule, wherever 
and whenever intelligence rose high enough to per- 
ceive the moral equation, as in China, Persia, Pal- 
estine, and Greece; and so, too, the "Love thy 
neighbor as thyself," and all the recognized obliga- 
tions, in religion and ethics, of fellowship and fra- 
ternity between man and man as the basis of 
society. Thus man himself is the proof that the 
universe, at least so far as concerns our existence, 
has a moral character and aim; and Goodness is 
to be added to Intelligence and Power, to complete 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



163 



the Trinity of forces in the world-process which 
Evolution teaches. 

But I may here be told that man himself is not 
good, that he is a violator of his own moral con- 
sciousness, that he continually breaks the com- 
mandments which his conscience declares, that a 
very large portion of mankind is sunk in wicked- 
ness and moral degradation. To this objection I 
reply that we are here talking of aims and aspira- 
tions, of the world-purpose and strivings; and we 
are not to confound these with any present accom- 
plishment. It is enough to prove a moral charac- 
ter and purpose in the universe that out of its own 
heart it has given birth to a moral guide, and that 
it has set in the spiritual sky of humanity an ideal 
of moral perfection to be followed after. Creation 
is not finished with man. Man himself has not 
completed the pattern of manhood. In most of us 
survive still some relics of the brute and the clod. 
But the ages are patient, and the world-purpose is 
to be judged by man's gradual success in overcom- 
ing animalism and enthroning intelligence and 
rectitude over brute selfishness and force. Says 
our Emerson: "The age of the quadruped is to go 
out: the age of the brain and of the heart is to 
come in. And, if one shall read the future of the 
race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to 
mount and meliorate, and the corresponding im- 
pulse to the Better in the human being, we shall 
dare affirm that there is nothing he will not over- 
come and convert, until at last culture shall absorb 



1 64 THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 

the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the 
Furies into Muses, and the hells into benefit." 
There is man's aim; and in man's aim Nature 
works toward her purpose. 

In considering, therefore, the character of the 
world-purpose, we are bid to take man, not at his 
poorest, but at his best. We are to take him, not 
as he is, but as he may be and aspires to be, — 
not in his wickedness and degradation, but in the 
moral shape he is slowly rising to assume. We 
are to take him in his highest achievements and 
his noblest possibilities. We are to take him with 
his moral ideals even more than with his achieve- 
ments. We are to think of the highest illustrators 
of manhood, of the saints and martyrs who have 
gone to their death rather than deny the truth, of 
the philanthropists who have lived self-denying 
lives for the good of their fellow-men, of the men 
and women who in quiet, inconspicuous stations or 
in the stress of life's conflicts have stood firmly for 
the right at whatever cost to self, of such lives of 
faithful affection, of stainless probity, of duties 
well discharged, as we have all seen in some realm 
or other of this common human life we share. We 
are to think of those in whose faces shine the Beat- 
itudes, who are of humble spirit, who are peace- 
makers, who are merciful, who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, who are pure in heart, who go 
about doing good. These are our patterns for the 
fashion of human life, and not they who still live 
in the company of base passions, and are still of 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



165 



the earth and the beast, earthy and animal only. 
And all these are revealers and apostles of an Eter- 
nal Goodness. Not only do they reveal the moral 
purpose of the universe, but they are sharers and 
sustainers in its accomplishment. 

" For Mercy has a human heart ; 
Pity, a human face ; 
And Love, the human form divine ; 
And Peace, the human dress. 

" And all must love the Human form, 
In heathen, Turk, or Jew; 
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, 
There God is dwelling too." 

Thus we have our Trinity, as science permits 
it. Power, Intelligence, Goodness, — these are 
the threefold manifestation of the creative World- 
energy. Power, Wisdom, Goodness, — these make 
our triune God. Nor is there a merely fancied 
resemblance between this idea and the philosophi- 
cal trinity of the later Platonic school in Greece, 
which the early Christian thinkers transformed 
into a theological Trinity. Out of the mystery of 
Eternal Being, the vague Source of all power and 
life, came, these ancient philosophers taught, the 
Logos, or Creative Word, the Word of Wisdom of 
which the Old Testament apocryphal writer loved 
to discourse, the "Word made flesh" which makes 
the theme of the proem of the Fourth Gospel. 
And this old doctrine of divine incarnation is 
true, only (as it has become one of the common- 



i66 



THE TRINITY OF EVOLUTION 



places of liberalism to teach) it is not exceptional 
for one man, but is the law for humanity. This 
Creative Word, of Power, of Wisdom, of Love, 
incarnates itself in human character to-day, full of 
grace and truth; and we may behold its glory. 
Through human lives, bent on the errands of truth, 
justice, mercy, and love, it is striving still to lift 
the whole race of humanity above the sway of an- 
cestral animalism into the higher life of self-con- 
trolling reason and moral law. The Power is from 
everlasting to everlasting, ever before our eyes; 
and a measure of it is organized in our human 
brains and hands. But Wisdom, too, reacheth 
from one end to another mightily, and " it enlight- 
eneth our eyes." Power is only executive, Wis- 
dom is creative; and Goodness, even our human 
goodness, completes the threefold creative work on 
this earth, and has been compared to the Holy 
Ghost of the ancient Trinity, whose "white wings 
stoop, unseen, o'er the heads of all." 



RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION OF 
GOD IN HUMAN NATURE. 



One of the best definitions of religion I have 
ever seen I met recently in a printed discourse by 
a minister of the Swedenborgian church. It was 
this: "Religion is the affirmation of God in human 
nature." The dialect of the discourse was some- 
what technically theological, of the style peculiar 
to the disciples of Swedenborg; yet, in the main, 
the thought contained in this definition was de- 
veloped simply, rationally, and naturally. The 
quickening of the soul to the perception of truth, 
the purification of the heart from all evil impulses 
and lusts, the instinctive action of conscience in 
denouncing wrong and approving the right, the 
consecration of the will to carry out into external 
deeds the behests of these inward perceptions of 
truth and rectitude and disinterested love, — these 
were depicted as the essential conditions and evi- 
dence of the influx and indwelling of the life of 
God in the human soul. The writer, for instance, 
further said that "the spiritual church of God is 
no other than the indwelling and irradiation of 
truth and mercy and justice and peace in all man's 
nature, coming from the centre, the temple where 
abides the Lord, throughout the whole earth of 



l68 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 



man's consciousness that silently listens and will- 
ingly obeys." 

This definition of religion as the affirmation of 
God in human nature seemed to me peculiarly sug- 
gestive at this time, as offering possibly certain 
meeting-points of enlightenment and reconciliation 
amidst the religious doubts and controversies which 
agitate the mental atmosphere of the present age. 
The contents of the definition, it is true, present 
no new thought. To affirm God in human nature 
is that doctrine of the immanence of God in 
humanity which Theodore Parker made so familiar 
in his preaching, and which has now become one 
of the commonplaces of liberal religious thinkers, 
and is not even a stranger in more evangelical 
writings. But "the affirmation of God in human 
nature " is an expression of the same truth in less 
scholastic, simpler, and therefore more impressive 
phrase. Let us, then, consider this new aspect of 
our old and familiar doctrine, "Religion is the 
affirmation of God in human nature." 

The subject, as it presents itself to my thought, 
divides into two parts : first, as a doctrine of en- 
lightenment and reconciliation among current criti- 
cisms, doubts, and disputes concerning religion; 
second, as a doctrine of practical reconciliation and 
applicable to the exigencies and struggles of per- 
sonal life. 

If we apply the method and results of science to 
the various problems of religion, and if we inter- 
pret the proposition contained in this definition of 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 



169 



religion thereby, it seems to me that light will be 
thrown where there is now much darkness, and a 
unifying principle be discovered for resolving cer- 
tain antagonisms in religious thinking, and for 
bringing discords into harmonies. There is, for 
instance, the old idea of God as a being external to 
the universe, making and ruling it from his seat 
above the heavens, and communicating his will to 
man by supernatural inspiration and miraculous 
agencies, — an idea that has become thoroughly dis- 
credited by science, and finds little support among 
philosophical thinkers to-day, but which keeps its 
hold, though a hold becoming more and more pre- 
carious, among the mass of uncultivated people, if 
they have any religious beliefs at all. On the 
other hand, there is the wide-spread disbelief in 
this kind of Deity, both among cultivated and un- 
cultivated people, combined with a professed in- 
capacity as yet to attain to any other and rational 
conception of God; and this kind of denial calls 
itself atheism. And, again, there is another type 
of belief about Deity which denies the old theolog- 
ical conception of a God outside the world, making 
the world in six days, and ruling it from a throne 
of sovereignty above the heavens, but which yet 
recognizes, within and behind all the changing ac- 
tivities and phenomena of the world, some power 
from which all things proceed or depend, — a 
power, however, which it declares an inscrutable 
mystery: this is the agnostic position, — a mental 
position frankly confessed by a large class of 



170 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

people at the present day, and the penumbra of 
whose doubts overlaps a very much larger class, 
including a multitude of persons who still keep 
their connection with churches. Now, to what 
does science lead us for belief on this great primal 
question of Deity? Of course, science — physical 
science — does not profess to have the problem of 
Deity for its object. It is investigating the forces, 
forms, organisms, creatures of the finite world. 
But, in pursuing this investigation, it has necessa- 
rily come into contact and conflict with the old re- 
ligious conception of the creation and government 
of the universe. And it has not done this without 
furnishing materials for at least a partial new con- 
ception of a Power corresponding to and taking the 
place of that Sovereignty to which the old theolo- 
gies gave the name of God. If science has not 
made this new conception so complete in particu- 
lars and so definite to the human understanding as 
was the old, this is not because the scientific con- 
ception is smaller than that of the ancient theol- 
ogies, but because it is vastly larger and more 
truly infinite in its comprehension. 

Now, keeping within the limits of scientific al- 
lowance, what kind of conception of Supreme and 
Divine Being is permitted to us? Herbert Spen- 
cer answers for agnosticism thus: "There remains 
the one absolute certainty, that man is ever in the 
presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from 
which all things proceed." That gives us the 
essential and original idea under the Hebrew Je- 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE I/I 

hovah-conception, "The I-am-that-I-am, " or unde- 
rived Eternal Being and Power. But, through the 
doctrine of the gradual evolution of the worlds and 
all their forms of life, combined with the doctrine 
of the conservation and correlation of forces, we 
are scientifically permitted to clothe this Infinite 
and Eternal Energy, in whose presence we ever 
are, and from which we ourselves proceed, with a 
certain history and attributes. In this part of the 
universe with which we are acquainted, we know 
that this Eternal Energy has manifested itself in 
the orderly development of finite forces, structures, 
organisms, and life; and on this planet, in the 
gradual ascent of life from the lowest and simplest 
forms of sensation to organisms more and more 
complex and expressive, until finally man appeared, 
and the Infinite and Eternal Energy in him broke 
into self-reflective thought and moral sensation, 
into speech and song and free co-operative volition 
for furthering the Eternal aim and process. Keep- 
ing strictly in the pathway through which science 
leads us, where could these human faculties of 
reason, of moral sense, and of moral volition, have 
had their source, and whence can they derive their 
continual being and validity but in that Infinite 
and Eternal Energy from which all things pro- 
ceed? We can scientifically give no other account 
of them than that they are finite manifestations, 
vital organic forms and expressions, of that Eternal 
Energy itself. But what is this Eternal Energy 
but the scientific name for the Power which religion 



172 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

has called God, or Jehovah, or Brahm, or Deity? 
The name matters little : each nation or language 
has its own. But they are all attempts to denote 
the one Great Reality, the "one absolute cer- 
tainty " of a Power eternal, in whose presence we 
ever are, and that not only comprehends but pene- 
trates us every moment with its law and life, and 
is the substance of our mental, moral, and affec- 
tional being. If science tells us truly of the 
orderly sequences of life through which the Eternal 
Energy travelled until it appeared in the human 
consciousness, what escape is there from the con- 
clusion that those inward perceptions of truth and 
rectitude and disinterested love that manifest them- 
selves in the human consciousness are part and par- 
cel of the very substance of that Eternal Power? 
or, in more religious phrase, are the manifestation 
and life of God in human nature? 

And, to my mind, it appears both reasonable and 
credible that all thoughtful minds now holding the 
various and antagonistic beliefs to which I have 
referred should come gradually into accord on this 
central truth, the resultant of science, that the 
Infinite and Eternal Energy, or God, has its em- 
bodiment and revelation in human nature, and that 
ultimately it should become a generally accepted 
fundamental principle that religion is the affirma- 
tion of the Eternal Divine Law, Purpose, and Life 
in the intellectual and moral nature of man. The 
traditional adherent of the old theological concep- 
tions would come to see that he has not thereby 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 



173 



lost his God, as he may now fear, but that, in lieu 
of his localized distant Deity, he has found an infi- 
nitely larger and grander conception of God, bring- 
ing him infinitely nearer, a literally omnipresent 
and vital Helper in every act and moment of life. 
The sceptic and atheist, seeing that the ecclesiasti- 
cal types of Deity had become obsolete and were 
relegated with their kindred to the shadow-land of 
mythology, could bring no logical objections to a 
conception of Deity suggested and substantiated 
by the science which they profess to take for a 
guide. They would see that their criticisms, many 
of them just, have been directed, not against this 
eternal root of the Deity-conception, from which 
there is no logical escape, but against the supersti- 
tious fancies which man's infantile imagination 
had fastened upon it. And the Agnostic, while 
still holding that the Infinite and Eternal Energy 
cannot be absolutely comprehended by man, and 
that it is vain that the human mind, by its meta- 
physical theologies, should attempt to analyze and 
elucidate all the attributes of Supreme Power, 
would nevertheless be logically compelled to con- 
fess that the being and character of a Power, whose 
gradual unfolding in nature and humanity is the 
one field where all our science makes its re- 
searches and discoveries, cannot possibly remain a 
wholly unknowable and inscrutable mystery. Why 
should not the agnostic, the sceptic, the atheist, 
the theist of all types, Christian and other, come 
thus to unite in the reverent paean, which even the 



174 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

sciences now sing, to the Power that was and is 
and is to be, and that organizes its august purposes 
and high behests in the rational and moral con- 
sciousness of man ? 

A similar ground for amity may be found for 
bringing together the old disputants in the Chris- 
tian Church about the doctrine of incarnation. 
The affirmation of God in human nature is, as we 
have seen, only a statement, in the more familiar 
phraseology of religion, of the scientific doctrine 
that the Eternal Energy, working its way upward 
through various orders of organic life, finally pro- 
duces and embodies itself in the organism of man, 
in whose capacities of rational thought, of moral 
perception and volition, and of disinterested love, 
it reveals its own purpose and secures a finite 
helper of its own kith, in the execution of its aims. 
And this is, essentially, the doctrine of incarna- 
tion. Man is the offspring of the Eternal Power 
in a larger, higher sense than are the lower creat- 
ures which have come from the all-producing En- 
ergy. Man is the moral offspring of the Eternal 
Power, and revealer, therefore, of its moral nature. 
Man can thus legitimately claim conscious sonship 
and heirship to Deity. The rational and moral 
character in him, since it can have no other source, 
is of the same substance and character with the 
Eternal Power whence it proceeds. Not all men, 
indeed, give evidence in their lives of this great 
fact of legitimate kinship to Deity. They who 
give high and full evidence of it are very few. 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 



175 



But the germinal possibilities of moral character 
are in the human race and, in a measure, in all 
individuals. It is but natural, however, that those 
who have incarnated in their lives most of the 
Eternal and Divine should have been regarded in 
ages of the world's simplicity of thought as having 
been miraculously endowed and born. So we even 
speak to-day of exceptionally great intellects as 
"godlike." And thus the doctrine of incarnation 
as a process exceptional and supernatural arose. 
In Christendom it was only Jesus that was the Son 
of God; in a large part of Asia, only Buddha. 
But science to-day is teaching a larger fact, that 
comprehends all exceptions and belittles all alleged 
miracles, — the fact that man, in his mental and 
moral capacities, is the veritable incarnation and 
responsible vicegerent of Eternal Power on this 
earth. "The history of Jesus," as Emerson said, 
becomes in this view "the history of every man, 
written large." 

Still again the various religions, with their con- 
flicting claims and bitter contentions, may find 
terms of peace in the recognition of religion itself 
as the affirmation of God in human nature. Now 
the religions each have their founders and prophets 
and scriptures, each claiming to reveal the one true 
God. But the one true God is not provincial, but 
universal; not tribal, but of all races and nations; 
not now and here, but everywhere and of all time. 
When science says that the Eternal Energy has em- 
bodied itself in humanity and disclosed necessarily 



I76 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

its own character and purpose in the rational and 
moral faculties of human nature, it points to the 
path of reconciliation among the now antagonistic 
religions of the world. They all claim rightly to 
be in legitimate connection with the Power Eternal 
and Divine. They all claim rightly to have some 
revelation of that Power, which, though they may 
claim for it supernatural origin, has actually come 
to them through the natural utterances of the ra- 
tional and moral consciousness of human nature. 
Here then is their ground of unity. They are but 
different developments and manifestations of the 
same Power, branches from one common root, or, 
as Paul phrased it, "There are diversities of opera- 
tions, but it is the same God who worketh all 
in all." 

But it is more than time that I turned to what I 
named as the second division of my topic, — the 
practical application of the definition of religion 
as the affirmation of God in human nature to in- 
dividual and personal needs, or its reconciling 
power in the actual struggles of life. And I 
touch here a subject, a central and fundamental 
truth of religious life, let me say, so momentous 
in its bearings, so solemn in respect to the respon- 
sibilities it devolves upon every one of us, that 
I know I can only treat it very inadequately. 
Though I have touched it or treated it scores of 
times in the course of my ministry, I have never 
yet been able to treat it to my satisfaction in the 
depth and breadth and height with which it some- 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 



177 



times presents itself to my mental vision. This 
subject, the Life and Power of God in the Soul of 
Man, was the subject of the first sermon I ever 
wrote; and, if in the last sermon I shall ever 
write, I could rightly deliver the message on this 
great theme toward which my thought aspires, I 
should deem it the highest crown my life work 
could receive. Here in this truth I am convinced 
is the gospel which this doubting, troubled age most 
needs, — this age of material prosperity and ambi- 
tions, this age of many threatening and perilous 
evils, but of noble moral and humanitarian aspi- 
rations. Amid these conflicting aims, here is the 
mediatorial motive needed for guidance, health, 
safety, and genuine progress. Could it be given 
to me to go through our land to proclaim with ade- 
quate power this gospel, I could ask for no higher 
mission. Here is the reconciling, atoning, saving 
religion of the future, — the gospel that is alike 
needed in the marts of trade, in the halls of poli- 
tics, in the industries and professions, in homes 
and churches and social life. 

Religion as the affirmation of God in human 
nature; religion as the proclamation of the verita- 
ble incarnation of the Eternal Power, with its attri- 
butes of intelligence and moral purpose in the 
human faculties, not by supernatural, exceptional 
inspiration, but naturally and inherently there in 
the very substance, fibre, and organism of the 
faculties themselves; religion as the organized 
presence, power, and life of God in the human 



I78 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

soul, — how can any one of us so bring this truth 
before ourselves that we may actually comprehend 
it and behold it and feel it in all its mighty im- 
port? That capacity within you to discern truth 
from error; that mental loyalty to truth which will 
not let you betray her when the highest motive 
controls you ; that conscious drawing of your hearts 
toward the highest rectitude, which only gives 
you ease and joy when you follow it; that sense 
of moral purity which shrinks instinctively from 
all uncleanness of thought and conduct; that im- 
pulse of disinterested love which summons you 
humbly to serve rather than selfishly to enjoy; 
your gifts of reason; your abilities to overcome 
difficulties, to transform nature's blind forces into 
benefits, to conquer vice and triumph over sorrow; 
your aspirations after knowledge; your domestic 
affections; all your noble enthusiasms for right 
and duty; the law laid upon all your faculties to 
do the utmost service with them for human good, — 
these are all not merely channels into which the 
Divine Life flows as if from an outward source, but 
they are the very energies themselves of the living 
power of the Eternal, vitally organized in the very 
substance of your being, and energies that are 
ever striving through you and in you and in all 
human beings toward the production of nobler 
forms of character and life, and of social welfare. 
This is the momentous import of our doctrine that 
religion is the affirmation of God in human nature. 
With this sovereign majesty of responsibility for 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 



179 



the well-being and progress of the world, if I in- 
terpret the lessons of our latest science aright, is 
man literally and actually invested. 

Nor does the critic have any valid ground for his 
question who asks, Since human nature proceeds 
from the one Infinite and Eternal Energy which 
we now identify as God, why must we not call 
human nature wholly divine in all its impulses, 
motives, and doings? The Eternal Energy itself 
takes care that no such consequence can follow. 
The God within is his own witness, and testifies 
clearly what parts of human nature are temporal 
and earthy survivals of material and animal law, 
and what parts are vital with eternal and moral 
purposes. Our doctrine does not teach that God is 
human nature, but that God is in human nature. 
Individual man, like the primitive human race, 
must subsist for a time through the various motives 
that spring from self-interest and self-gratification. 
But self-interest is never normally an end in itself. 
It is only an instrumentality for the accomplish- 
ment of some universal good. It is only for uni- 
versal and eternal purposes that the Eternal Energy 
can care. Its high law can have no part in provid- 
ing for personal partialities, nor demean itself to 
offices of purely selfish gain or pleasure. It is of 
the very essence of the religious consciousness, 
when it is awakened, to annul all interests and 
gratifications which are bounded by self, and to 
subject all the self-seeking propensities to the ser- 
vice of the general benefit. In his capacity as a 



180 RELIGION AS THE AFFIRMATION 

free agent man can pursue the ends of selfish grati- 
fication; but, so far as he does so, he is irrelig- 
ious, he loses the godlike from his nature, and 
sinks back under the sway of carnal and material 
law toward the meagre existence of the brute and 
the clod. But, obeying the God that is within 
him, man rises ever upward into successively larger 
and richer realms of mental, moral, and spiritual 
life. 

Our faculties thus clothed with this majesty of 
Divine Sovereignty, how great the profanation and 
crime, and how overwhelming should be our shame, 
if we put them to base uses, if we harness them to 
the pursuits of selfish avarice and cunning and to 
the appetites of the flesh! For all such debase- 
ment and defilement, the hells open at our feet 
with ample retributions. The very faculties will 
dwindle and perish under persistent misuse and 
abuse. Yet heaven, too, is no distant place nor 
time, but lies level with the true mind, the pure 
heart, and the consecrated will. The God that is 
within human nature is a Power ever ready at hand 
in all the storms and stresses of life, and needs not 
to be invoked from afar. Prayer is the excitation 
of the higher and heavenly faculties of our own nat- 
ures to take and hold dominion over the impulses 
of the heart and the conduct of life, and to redeem 
us from the sway of our own temptations and sins. 
The Divinity does not have to be waited for, but 
waits itself, at the very spot of need, for man's 
soliciting gesture and effort. If men will draw 



OF GOD IN HUMAN NATURE 1 8 1 

the lightning of the skies to do their daily errands, 
or harness fire and steam for their steeds, and the 
power comes also sometimes to kill and to maim, 
man must know that the Deity to whom he is to 
pray for averting the peril is the Deity enthroned 
in the intelligence and skill of the human facul- 
ties. If we are summoned into the valley of the 
shadows to part there with companions whom we 
have cherished, in the hushed chambers of our own 
hearts and in "the work of our hands" shall we 
find the rod and the staff that are waiting to 
comfort us. The cure for earth's distresses is 
committed to man's keeping. The elements of 
Divinity are within him, the elements of heaven 
are right around him. To his intelligent and con- 
secrated will is given the task to transform the 
errors and ills of earth into the moral prosperity 
and gladness of heaven. Who of us will not with 
renewed alacrity enlist in that godlike service? 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP. 



In calling your attention to the question, "What 
is worship, and are there any rational grounds for 
it? " I wish to say at the outset that I use the word 
"worship" itself with a rational discrimination. 
It is one of the old religious words which, because 
of errors and superstitions surrounding them, have 
fallen largely into disuse among liberal thinkers 
as damaged phraseology. I am not myself accus- 
tomed to employ the word without explanation ex- 
pressed or implied. In the ordinary ecclesiastical 
sense it means, of course, some specific act of 
adoration or homage to Deity or deities ; and this 
act may be performed by a Christian or pagan, by 
a Jew, Mohammedan, or Buddhist, according to 
their respective beliefs, by every kind of idolater 
as well as by an enlightened devotee. It may be 
the turning of a prayer-machine, as among some of 
the Asiatic Buddhists, or the counting of beads, 
as in the Roman Catholic church, or a dance of 
ecstasy, as among the dervishes, or an act of silent 
aspiration, as among the Quakers, or a great burst 
of music by voice and instruments, as in many 
Christian and other churches. All these and any 
other acts, under any kind of religious faith, which 
are believed to give the participants special access 
to the Deity or deities of their faith, are rightly 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 1 83 



classified in religious history under the term "wor- 
ship." Yet, into whatever empty and meaningless 
formalities many of these acts have fallen, and 
however superstitious, idolatrous, and corrupt they 
may seem to any of us, — and the idolatries are not 
all among the so-called pagan faiths, — the word 
"worship" has, when we analyze its origin, a very 
excellent meaning; and at the root of the practice 
there is a vital truth which is not yet outgrown, 
and which is capable of enlightened and beneficent 
interpretation. In itself, etymologically consid- 
ered, worship means "the condition of attaining 
worthiness." The word is of Anglo-Saxon origin; 
and the first syllable of it means "worth," and the 
second syllable signifies "means," or "instru- 
ment," or "condition" (literally, "vessel," it is 
probable) for bringing the "worth." In this 
sense, certainly, it is a very good word to keep. 
And it is with this underlying sense that I use it 
in this discourse, with reference to the religious 
usage of the assembling of people together for 
some kind of specific and public expression of re- 
ligious thought and feeling. It is of this kind of 
usage that I propose to consider whether it has any 
rational grounds of continuance. Not a few lib- 
eral thinkers to-day are disposed to doubt, or even 
to deny, that there are such grounds. And, in 
contending that there is a rational basis for wor- 
ship as thus defined, and as such public services 
may be conducted, I want to make two or three 
definite preliminary statements. 



184 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

First, I do not believe and have never taught 
that Deity dwells more in any edifice called a 
church than he does in our homes ; nor that we can 
ever set apart any place, and make it by any verbal 
formula of consecration a divine temple; nor that 
genuine worship of the Eternal depends on special 
place or time or form of speech, or architectural 
structure. The universe is God's temple. In nat- 
ure around us he both reveals and hides himself. 
He may be found on the mountain-top or by 
ocean's shore. The Eternal Power smiles for us 
in the beauty of the roadside flower and of the 
orchards, or may meet our thought as we gaze up- 
ward to the overarching blue sky, — that all-em- 
bracing, bending vault of the heavens, where our 
Aryan ancestors in Asia, centuries before the 
Christian era, found their highest symbol of Deity 
and named it "Heaven-Father." Looking, there- 
fore, at outward nature alone, we cannot go outside 
of God's temple. We cannot find the smallest spot 
in all space, nor contemplate a single force in the 
whole realm of existence, but that Deity is there. 

Further, and in a still deeper sense, the human 
soul is God's temple. The Eternal dwells and 
lives and moves in humanity. In human charac- 
ter, true, loving, beneficent, is his highest revela- 
tion. This is what one of our hymns says: — 

" God is in his holy temple : 

In the pure and holy mind, 
In the reverent heart and simple, 
In the soul from sense refined." 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 



i35 



So we shall not find Deity in any church unless we 
have brought him with us in our minds and hearts; 
that is, unless we find him through the pathway 
of some desire for a better perception of truth and 
for purer life, through sincere desire for nobler 
thinking, nobler loving, nobler doing. Nor, 
again, do I forget that this "pure and holy mind," 
this "reverent and simple heart," this enkindling 
of a solemn purpose to live more uprightly, more 
unselfishly, more nobly and purely, this aroused 
devotion to high objects of beneficence, may occur 
elsewhere than in a so-called house of God. It 
must come most surely to the earnest mother, as 
she sits thoughtfully by the cradle of her new-born 
child. It comes whenever the young man and 
young woman take each other in the holy vows of 
a true marriage. It comes in many an incident of 
home life where heart touches heart to the awaken- 
ing of new hope and firmer resolve for the good. 
It comes whenever a great temptation in the con- 
ventional life of business or fashion is overcome, 
and the soul is rescued to live henceforth upon its 
own integrity. Whenever and wherever the human 
soul is thus uplifted to see and to grasp for a 
higher good, there is worship, there is devotion, 
and there is God. And the soul that in any spot, 
by any means, thus finds him becomes his choicest 
temple. The grandest cathedral, the most beauti- 
ful temple, that human art ever built is not so 
amiable (to use the quaint Bible phrase), is not so 
fascinatingly lovely, so wonder-inspiring, as is the 



l86 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

human soul when livingly consecrated to the ser- 
vice of truth and goodness. 

All these things I firmly believe and teach. 
Yet I also believe in the great usefulness of a fixed 
place and time for special religious services. I 
believe in the Church as an institution which 
human society still needs for its highest good. 
Whether the Church is ever to be outgrown, 
whether this need is ever to be supplied in some 
other way, is a question which may be asked, and 
which some rationalistic thinkers do ask, but which 
seems to me to be a question that does not loudly 
call for present discussion. As to the future, it 
will answer it own questions. For the present, as 
I look around me and study the wants, the aspira- 
tions, the mental and moral condition of society, I 
am convinced that the Church as an institution 
is not yet outgrown, — in other words, that estab- 
lished religious usages and instrumentalities are 
serving humanity in a way which nothing else has 
yet been found able to supplant. Did I not be- 
lieve this fully and thoroughly, I could not have 
faced a congregation Sunday after Sunday for more 
than thirty years, with the religious words on my 
tongue. 

Of course I know that the Church, regarding it 
in the light of instituted religion as a whole, has 
tolerated and taught great errors and committed 
great wrongs. The saddest chapters of history, 
and some of the crudest, are those that describe 
deeds that have been done in the name of religion. 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 1 8/ 

I know that there are great sections of the Chris- 
tian Church to-day which, by their doctrines and 
ritual, keep the intellects of their adherents in 
gross darkness and delay human progress. The 
Church needs vast transformations to fit it to do 
the work now demanded of it. But those transfor- 
mations are coming. I see the beginnings of them 
even in churches that are still far from me in re- 
spect to beliefs and forms of worship. I believe, 
therefore, in the Church, not as it has been in 
the past, not as it is in the present, but as an in- 
stitution capable of reformation and growth. I 
believe in it as having its origin in a vital human 
sentiment and idea, but as having become mal- 
formed through gross errors. But the sentiment 
and idea are genuine, and are still an organic part 
of the human mind demanding expression; and, 
when duly enlightened, they will convert the 
Church and its varied instrumentalities into an 
institution in full harmony with rational thought 
and humanitarian objects. That is the hope which 
animates my heart as a religious believer, and that 
is the purpose which has impelled me to cast my 
lot with radical religious reformers. 

And it is from this position and point of view 
that I feel moved to speak these words to-day in 
behalf of the Church as it may be liberally organ- 
ized. There is a significance and value in relig- 
ious institutions which a large class of liberal 
thinkers seem to me seriously to overlook. This 
class of thinkers regard religious institutions as 



1 88 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

fatally involved with superstitions and false beliefs 
which must inevitably pass away; and so they are 
iconoclasts. They would sweep the Church out of 
existence or, at least, leave it to a process of nat- 
ural neglect and decay as the increasing light of 
reason and science shall show it to have no valid 
basis in truth. But I claim for religious institu- 
tions ample validity on the ground of reason, — 
yes, on the ground of science and of a scientific 
philosophy of human nature; for the Church, not 
with its errors and superstitions, but reformed and 
elevated to its own ideal possibilities. 

And my first reason for the continuance of the 
Church, as thus defined, is that it stands for 
the moral and spiritual interests of mankind, for 
the higher life of man as distinguished from those 
pursuits which are devoted to gain-getting and to 
the feeding and clothing and sheltering of the body. 
Now I believe that it is a historical fact that relig- 
ion, notwithstanding all its corruptions and false 
teachings, has always in essence stood for this 
higher life, for an ideal beyond and better than the 
actual, for something more than the pleasure of the 
senses and the satiety of physical appetite. It has 
stood for a law of mental and moral restraint upon 
the body and its desires. It has stood for high 
commands of right and duty. It has held out the 
promise, either for this world or some other, of 
a better and happier life for mankind, when the 
evils and sins of their passing existence should be 
conquered and known no more. The literature of 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 189 

all the great religions testifies to this sense of a 
higher life. All the great prophets of all faiths 
have sought to kindle and strengthen these aspira- 
tions for higher than physical satisfactions. And 
to-day there is no question among people whose 
testimony is worth consideration that there is this 
higher life; that is, a life not given over to un- 
controlled physical license or to the amassing of 
material wealth, but a life following the high lead- 
ings of mind and conscience and heart to felicities 
that are of a mental and spiritual order. This will 
be admitted even by those who hold a material- 
istic philosophy. It will be asserted by aggressive 
iconoclasts in religion like Ingersoll. There is 
a lower life, devoted to the physical senses and 
pleasures and to material ambitions; and there is 
a higher life of mind and heart and conscience. 
Now I say that religion represents and has always 
in a sense represented, even under its false creeds 
and strange practices, this upper and aspiring side 
of human life. It has taught that man may live by 
immortal principles and for a deathless destiny. 
And the Church, taken at its average at the present 
day, expresses for human society at large, though 
but in poor, pitiful, and stumbling fashion, this up- 
ward look and aspiration, this belief in and rever- 
ence for the higher law of life. And, if the Church 
in the average has this signification now, even en- 
cumbered as it is with false doctrines and with 
traditional usages which have lost their meaning for 
the present age, how much more effectively might it 



I9O RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

express and serve this purpose, were it emancipated 
from its blind thraldom to outgrown creeds and 
traditions, and brought up abreast with the grow- 
ing light and truth and humane endeavors of this 
new time! 

And no one, surely, can deny that a powerful 
influence on this upper and better side of life is 
needed in this age. It is especially an age given 
to material hopes, enterprises, and pursuits, an age 
of commerce and mechanical ambition and wealth- 
getting, an age when man is struggling with the 
material world to master its forces and drain to 
himself, for his own acquisition and enjoyment, its 
riches. All this is well, if kept controlled for 
serving the higher acquisitions of mind and heart 
and soul. But, as yet, this higher control does 
not to any mastering extent disclose itself. It is 
an age of Mammon-worship and of the power of 
Mammon. The amassed and quickly accumulated 
riches show themselves too often in pandering to 
the lower and animal life, in increased comforts 
and luxuries for the body, in multiplying every sort 
of means of self-indulgence, in pampering physical 
appetite and every form of desire for physical 
pleasure, in ostentatious parade of dress and equi- 
page and costly festivities, and, alas, in the more 
positive vices of gambling and other dissipations 
that attach themselves to vulgar wealth and fringe 
the borders even of reputable society in all our 
large cities and at the fashionable places of pleas- 
ure resort. There are persons of wealth who have 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 191 

learned how to use their wealth for noble objects. 
But these appear to be the exceptions. The major- 
ity seem not yet to have learned that high art. 
These know no way to show their wealth except on 
their persons or their houses or their horses, and 
in devising a round of festive excitements for every 
season to fill up the year. And this spirit has in- 
fected nearly all classes of society. Families of 
smaller means ape, in narrower way, these false 
methods of the rich, and actually stint themselves 
in respect to some of the higher satisfactions of 
life which are within their reach in order that they 
may put on the appearance of vulgar fashion. 
Thus moral earnestness in all grades of society is 
very much at a discount, and shines with a beauty 
all the greater in the cases where we do behold it. 
The old-fashioned virtues of simplicity and self- 
denial in respect to the material pleasures of life, 
for the sake of a high aim which the mind or the 
conscience has set, are becoming too rare; and 
young people are bred too much under the idea that 
they must be having u a good time," — their concep- 
tion of "a good time" being generally some form 
of pleasurable excitement for the senses, — or else 
they are not getting their share of life's satisfac- 
tions. Thus, all through society, the aims of 
people are set upon the lower, material objects of 
life, and the actual standard of conduct is self- 
indulgence rather than self-consecration. The 
power of Mammon, too, with its selfish greed, is 
fatally corrupting our politics, so that it is often 



I92 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

said that an honest poor man, though well fitted for 
the duties, cannot afford to enter political life, or 
is not allowed to enter it by the political rings. 
And business has developed a code of conduct of its 
own, on the plea that it cannot live by the ordinary 
moral code of honesty and sincerity. 

Now, against this prevailing lowness and practi- 
cal materialism of human life, this pampering in- 
dulgence of the flesh, these strong forces of self- 
ish greed and cunning and sensual pleasure, the 
Church stands proclaiming for humanity higher 
hopes and nobler satisfactions, or should so stand. 
Though it does its work very imperfectly, it is to 
be honored for the attempt to do it. It is its func- 
tion to recall to people the fact that there is a part 
of human nature which is capable of loftier themes 
than the rise and fall of stocks or the fluctuations 
of trade or social festivities or a neighborhood's 
gossip. It is its high office to summon people to a 
place where one moral law is to be declared for all 
sorts and conditions of mankind, — for the rich and 
the poor, for politics and trade, for the home and 
the street. It should hold up before bewildered 
and stumbling consciences the attractiveness of the 
virtues of purity, temperance, self-control, sincer- 
ity, mutual justice and beneficence between man 
and man. Above all, it may point out the value of 
those priceless and immortal possessions which, 
whatever may be the outward lot, even though it 
be one of deprivation, hardship, and sorrow, are 
the inalienable property of the pure heart and the 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 193 

upright mind. In a word, the Church stands, 
when it fulfils its mission, for the life of the spirit 
and for the joys that are the fruit thereof, as 
against the life given over to the sway of material 
passions and objects. Matthew Arnold summed 
up his characterization of Ralph Waldo Emerson 
by classing him as one to whom after generations 
would resort as "the friend and aider of those who 
would live in the spirit." So would I claim the 
continuance of the Church, rationally organized 
and open to advancing truth, because it is, and 
may be vastly more than it now is, the friend and 
aider of those who would live in the spirit. 

But I go farther than this. I have another and 
still deeper reason for my belief that religious in- 
stitutions will in some shape continue for supply- 
ing a need of human nature. This reason is that 
they express, as nothing else does, man's sense of 
his relation to that Supreme Power in the universe 
which science calls the Eternal Energy in all 
things, which religion has called, in simplest 
phrase, the Most High, but which is really beyond 
and above all our definitions and names. We in 
our English tongue say "God"; yet the word only 
hints at an Infinite Reality which outrides all our 
powers of thought. But, because this Supreme 
Power is more inconceivable and more fraught with 
mystery than some of the old creeds represented, it 
is none the less a real power, and one with which 
we daily have to do. If any think to construct 
human life without this factor, however much they 



194 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

may quarrel with the theological representations of 
it, they certainly have cast off as well all logical 
reckoning, having given up that which is not only 
the Highest, but the basis of all, — 

" Path, Motive, Guide, Original, and End." 

Religion may be defined, in its strictest philosoph- 
ical sense, as the human consciousness of relation- 
ship to this Power and the effort to practical 
harmony therewith; and religious institutions, in- 
cluding the so-called services of worship, are an 
organized expression of this relation and effort. 
Their function is to deepen and strengthen the 
consciousness of the relation and to keep actively 
alive the sense of human obligation to Divine 
Law. And, by the new interpretations of Divine 
Power which science is giving us, I believe that 
the obligations of mankind thereto are strength- 
ened rather than weakened. On this point I am 
compelled to take issue with the current teaching 
of some of my radical friends and colaborers in the 
work of religious reform. One of these in a recent 
address said : " Duties to man and duties to God is 
the common classification. But there are no duties 
to God, in that sense, . . . and the only duty 
there is to God is a duty to man." And another 
said on the same occasion : " God needs none of 
our devotion : he has all the honor and glory that 
he wants; but man needs to be uplifted. It has 
heretofore been, 4 Everything for God, and nothing 
for man' ; and now we wish to change that and say, 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP I95 

'All for man, and God will take care of himself.' " 
I have great respect for the mental ability of both 
of these friends, and their earnest moral characters 
I reverence. I have entire sympathy, too, with 
the motive underlying these utterances, and under- 
stand their point of view. Their moral indigna- 
tion is excited, and justly, against the formalistic 
worship, the merely ceremonial acts of piety, which 
have prevailed and still prevail so largely in the 
Church, while the pious devotees and the churches 
in which they dominate utterly forget the weightier 
matters of justice and mercy to man. In denounc- 
ing religion and worship of this sort, I go with 
these critics to the full. And there is ample Bible 
authority, if that be needed, for such denunciation 
in the scathing words with which Jesus and Isaiah 
rebuked these hypocritical worshippers of their 
respective times, who made many prayers, but for- 
got the moral law. Such denunciation comes, 
indeed, from the deepest places of religion. 

Nevertheless, I believe that that old phrase, 
"duties to God," as something more than though 
always implying "duties to man," has still a dis- 
tinct and valid meaning. At least, to my mind, 
to deny the truth of the phrase leads to a greater 
untruth than to affirm it. With all respect to 
these objectors, it seems to me that in these utter- 
ances their thought is still entangled in the meshes 
of the theological creeds which they have discarded, 
and hence their logic in this particular halts; and 
their radicalism, after all, though so sweeping, 



I96 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

does not go down to the root of things. Both of 
them are sons of orthodox clergymen, and their 
early training was under the old creeds of Ortho- 
doxy. It is difficult for those who up to mature 
life have been indoctrinated in that faith, and then 
change their belief for liberal views, not to con- 
tinue to associate religion and religious institu- 
tions with the false conceptions which they have 
abjured. When I speak of religious services as a 
special expression of human obligations to Deity, 
and as still having in that sense a true and very 
vital meaning, I am not thinking, as these critics 
appear to be, of that theological image of a ma- 
jestic being seated with sovereign power in the 
skies, whose ear is pleased with praises, and who 
hears and answers petitions, like a human monarch. 
Not at all. Nothing whatever of that Calvinistic 
Jehovah-conception of Deity is in my mind. I am 
thinking of the Infinite Energy which is, at every 
moment, the law and life of the universe, and of 
which on this planet man himself, with his moral 
sense, capacity, and aspirings, is the highest mani- 
festation. I am thinking of a Power as Source 
and Sustainer of this universe, entirely compatible 
with the scientific doctrine of evolution. Take 
even Herbert Spencer's latest statement of his 
unknowable principle that is at the root of all 
the world-forces, transformations, and phenomena, 
"the Infinite and Eternal Energy whence all 
things proceed," — take even that for a definition 
of Deity, there would be very ample and solid 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP I97 



ground for the idea of obligation to this Power. 
Man is indebted to it for all that he is, and for all 
that he is capable of knowing and< doing and en- 
joying. From it come his very ideas of justice 
and kindness and of all other duties to his fellow- 
man. That which so nobly serves him he is bound 
in turn to serve. He is not only gifted to see the 
ideal right which is the aim of the universe, but 
he is equipped with faculties to help the aim 
onward to realization. It is evident, therefore, 
that our free-thought friend must have been think- 
ing of his father's idea of God when he said that 
God needs no devotion and help from us, but will 
take care of himself. The Calvinistic God did, 
indeed, take care of his own interests, and elected 
man to grace or doomed him to reprobation solely 
by his own almighty decree, let man do or pray as 
he would. But the God of the evolution philoso- 
phy, the Deity of reason and science, does need 
man's thought, man's devotion and help, in carry- 
ing forward the plan of the universe; for man has 
been admitted as a co-worker with the Eternal 
Power toward the realizations of the highest be- 
neficence and happiness, and is under obligations, 
which he cannot ignore, to render his best service. 
It is, thus, from our duty to serve the highest Law 
and Life of the universe that our duties to man 
are derived. And one of the friends to whom I 
have referred recognizes this thought in the same 
address. He says: "It is at no man's option 
whether justice and honor bind him. Man no 



I98 RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 

more creates the moral world of obligation than he 
does the physical one of fact : he has only to fit 
himself into it, and let its sublimity make him 
sublime. Man is not the summit of things. As 
the heavens bend over his body and the stars unal- 
terably shine, so the moral law arches over the soul 
of man; and he is greatest as he bends in lowly 
worship to it." 

Now, I do not say that this Spencerian concep- 
tion of the Ultimate Power contains all that can 
be rationally included in the idea of God. I have 
quoted this because it is pretty generally accepted 
by rationalistic and radical thinkers to-day. But, 
even if this were all that can be affirmed, it leaves 
ample room not only for a religious philosophy but 
for religious institutions. It declares man to be 
every moment in the presence of an Infinite and 
Eternal Power which has given him creation, sus- 
tenance, life, and not only physical life, but men- 
tal and moral life; and in his mental and moral 
life has given also the law and the possible self- 
direction by which his life may ascend to larger 
capacities and richer realizations. 

What a realm of high themes is open for human 
thought by such a relationship as this! What 
heroisms of endeavor does it make possible! This 
Infinite Energy is a living power: it is the in- 
spiration of the life of the universe and of the 
soul of man. More literally from such a philos- 
ophy than from the old theology even may man 
exclaim, "My heart and my flesh cry out for the 



RATIONAL GROUNDS FOR WORSHIP 1 99 

living God," — for more and more of that vital 
creative power within, that perception of and obe- 
dience to the law of life which shall be health to 
body and mind, inspiring purer purposes and lift- 
ing to saner thoughts and joys. Among all the 
institutions of man shall there not remain one 
which shall attempt to express this august and 
mysterious, but most vital and real and fundamental 
of all his relationships, — that relationship from 
which he cannot possibly escape? and not only at- 
tempt to express this relationship, but to incite 
people more fittingly and worthily to feel the high 
obligations it involves and to inspire them with 
stronger purpose to perform well their part in this 
high partnership wherein divine law is executed 
through human action? So long as the human heart 
is capable of being stirred to loftier and more heroic 
impulses by earnest speech on the highest themes, 
or by music and poetry and art, or by the silent 
sympathy that leaps from heart to heart when num- 
bers come together with a common purpose, so 
long, I think, will some form of outward temple 
stand, — stand as a symbol of living union between 
man and the Most High, and serve as a vestibule 
through which the worshippers may pass to that 
inner worship which is in spirit and in truth and 
in living character. 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIG- 
IONS: ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND 
POSSIBLE RESULTS. 



It would seem as if great eras in the progress 
of mankind should be marked outwardly by great 
events. Yet this is not always so. At least the 
date historically accepted as the beginning of 
a new era may have been distinguished by no 
incidents which at the time were noted as ex- 
traordinary. In such cases posthumous legend, 
generations afterward, is apt to weave fitting dra- 
matic draperies of circumstance for signalizing 
the new historical departure. But, again, great 
epochs in history are not infrequently marked by 
correspondingly conspicuous events, by incidents 
which at the time were seen and felt to be great 
and epoch-making. Particular battles have changed 
the political maps of continents and the destinies 
of nations. There have been eminent ecclesiasti- 
cal councils whose decrees have fixed the religious 
beliefs of men and women for centuries. The 
adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the 
Colonial Congress was a most meet and noble 
birthmark of this American republic of sixty-five 
millions of free people. In the nineteenth cen- 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 201 



tury, and especially in this latter half of the 
century, the progress of mankind has been so mar- 
vellously rapid all along the lines of human activ- 
ity, and more particularly in the development of 
material civilization and in the advancement of 
learning, philanthropy, and all branches of science, 
that we appear to be in the midst of a new era 
without being able to point to any one conspicuous 
event to herald its beginning. As a part of this 
general progress, a most remarkable evolution in 
religious beliefs and activities has been taking 
place. I am, indeed, one of those who believe 
that the forces that have produced the various re- 
ligions among men have not exhausted their crea- 
tive capacity, but that the intellect and heart of 
mankind to-day, in vital touch with these forces, 
are in the birth-struggles of a new religion. That 
coming religion which the sagacious Count Cavour 
predicted thirty years ago, that new Church which 
our own prophet-eyed Emerson foresaw and fore- 
told, is actually dawning before the eyes of this 
generation, whether we all consciously behold it or 
not. Though evolving gradually from the old, it 
may rightly be called a new religion, because all 
the tendencies prognosticate an essentially new 
basis of faith, new articles of belief, new objects 
and methods of organized activity. 

And of this coming religion the World's Par- 
liament of Religions, in connection with the In- 
ternational Columbian Exposition in Chicago, is 
pre-eminently the most significant general sign 



202 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

that has yet appeared. It is an event known now 
in all parts of the world and to be memorable in 
history, and will worthily mark, in the annals of 
mankind, the opening of the new religious era, 
whose dawn we may discern on the horizon of the 
future. More than twenty years back a fond vision 
appeared to me of some such gathering of the 
world's faiths; but little did I dream that my 
modest prophecy was so soon to be realized, — real- 
ized in somewhat different purpose and shape, but 
even more grandly than I had dared to hope, and 
under auspices such as then I could not imagine as 
possibly uniting in a religious conception and en- 
terprise so world-wide and nobly inclusive. It is 
from this point of view, and with this sense of the 
greatness of the topic, however inadequately I 
shall treat it, that I have invited you here to con- 
sider with me the theological significance and the 
possible practical results of that unique repre- 
sentative assembly, — the World's Parliament of 
Religions. 

Even the great Exposition at Chicago — which, 
taken all in all, is the grandest representation of 
the achievements of human art and industry the 
world has ever seen — paled its glories last month 
before the august assemblage of the world's faiths. 
The eager crowds of people that filled Columbus 
Hall for seventeen days, and thronged in the pas- 
sage-ways leading thereto, bore unconscious testi- 
mony to the fact, well stated by the presiding 
chairman, that "there is a spiritual root to all 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 203 

human progress." I shall ever count it among the 
inestimable high enjoyments of my life that it was 
my good fortune to be present at the opening of 
the Parliament, and to witness the procession of 
the World's Religions, as their representatives, 
walking arm in arm, entered the hall, and marched 
to the broad platform together, their faces all 
beaming with one harmonious and gladdening 
light. At the head of the procession walked the 
president of the Parliament and its auxiliary con- 
gresses, a Swedenborgian layman, and at his side 
scarlet-robed Cardinal Gibbons, the highest official 
of the Roman Catholic Church in this country. 
There followed Jew and Greek, Christian and 
Buddhist, Brahman and Mohammedan, Parsee and 
Confucian, Indian monk and Methodist missionary. 
All races and colors and nationalities, and both 
sexes, and all the great religions of the globe, and 
their various sects, Christian and non-Christian, 
there mingled together in one triumphal march of 
human brotherhood. And, when the platform was 
reached and the delegates were seated, the spec- 
tacle was as picturesque as it was august. The 
Japanese High Priest of Shintoism out-cardinalled 
the Cardinal in the gorgeousness of his apparel. 
The white-robed Buddhist from Calcutta won all 
eyes by the purity of his dress, as afterward he 
won ears by the purity of his English speech, and 
hearts by the purity of his sentiments. The high- 
caste Brahmanical monk from India made some of 
us stiffly dressed Americans envy his loosely flow- 



204 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

ing and graceful silken garments. The dignified 
Chinese Confucian was at ease in the richly col- 
ored garb of his native land. The venerable arch- 
bishop of Zante, at the head of a marked group of 
representatives of the Greek Church, was not be- 
hind his Catholic brothers in the decorative insig- 
nia of his high office. Even the women of India 
were represented by a young woman in native dress 
from Bombay, educated and eloquent. The whole 
scene presented the materials of a picture, which 
some great painter ought to have been there to 
sketch, — a picture of the coming peace among the 
faiths of the world. No one could have been pres- 
ent without feeling that he was a participant in an 
event which is to become one of the great epochs 
in the history of mankind. 

That first day was devoted entirely to addresses of 
welcome, and of responses from the distinguished 
representatives of the various churches and religions 
there assembled. Though several of the speakers 
referred, with perfect courtesy and propriety, to 
their loyalty to their own faith and church, yet 
there was not a word throughout the day which 
jarred the harmony of sentiment that was felt and 
spiritually breathed as an atmosphere binding the 
speakers and the great assemblage together. As if 
by a common instinct, the speakers found their 
points of agreement, with surprise and joy that 
they were so many, and forgot for the time their 
differences. The key-note of the Parliament was 
struck by the chairman of the Committee of 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 20$ 

Arrangements, Rev. Dr. Barrows, in his welcom- 
ing address, when he said, "We are here as 
members of a Parliament of Religions over which 
flies no sectarian flag, which is to be stampeded 
by no sectarian war-cries, but where, for the first 
time in a large world-council, is lifted up the 
banner of love, fellowship, and brotherhood." 
And that note was not lost nor slurred through the 
whole day; but from the varied voices and mani- 
fold tongues, together with one accord in one place 
from all round the globe, rose a grand symphony 
of common aspiration, faith, and hope. It was 
worth going several thousand miles to hear the 
same Presbyterian doctor of divinity from whom 
I have just quoted utter in his address of greeting 
such sentences as these: "Welcome to the men 
and women of Israel, the standing miracle of na- 
tions and religions! Welcome to the disciples of 
Prince Siddartha, the many millions who cherish 
in their hearts Lord Buddha as the Light of Asia! 
Welcome to the high priest of the national religion 
of Japan! Welcome to the men of India, and all 
faiths! " It was worth going thousands of miles to 
hear a Cardinal of the Church of Rome say, "As 
man is one people, one family, we recognize God 
as our common Father and Christ as our brother " ; 
or to hear on the same platform a negro bishop 
from Africa exclaim, in his joy of congratulations 
for his people, "This is the first gathering of all 
the races of men as brothers since Noah with his 
sons landed on Mount Ararat." And it was worth 



206 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

a lifetime of sixty years to have lived to hear, in a 
city near the heart of this great country, educated 
and refined men whom Christendom has been wont 
to stigmatize as heathen giving not only equally 
cordial answer to this cordial welcome, but, out of 
their own Oriental faiths and their own scriptures, 
responding with utterance of the same humane and 
celestial sentiments of love, benevolence, tolera- 
tion, brotherhood, and peace, and evincing the 
same aspirations after truth, purity, and holy 
living. 

That opening day alone seemed suddenly to have 
advanced liberal faith in the world a hundred 
years. To none who was there and imbibed the 
spirit of that meeting could it seem possible that 
the fences between the faiths should ever again 
appear so high, the partition walls so thick, as 
heretofore they have been. The brotherhood of 
the faiths and the races was there actually felt and 
tasted. Henceforth this was to be no abstraction 
of theological thinking, no visionary goal of relig- 
ious ethics, but must take its place as a vital, 
practical purpose, which religion and social ethics 
are to join forces to achieve. For the five or six 
thousand people who at different hours made that 
pentecostal assembly, it was demonstrated to the 
eye and the ear, to the head and the heart, that the 
faiths of the earth are of one root and may have 
by right culture one fruitage, that all the religions 
and races of men are realms of one Power, eternal, 
omnipresent, working in and through all things 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 207 

and all men for right and for truth. And these 
thousands of men and women, it was felt, could 
not scatter to their distant homes around the globe 
without a broader, truer vision, and a more broth- 
erly purpose in their hearts to work henceforth, in 
their neighborhoods, communities, nations, and 
churches, somewhat less for sect and creed, and a 
great deal more for the new old gospel of the 
Golden Rule, which has found expression in so 
many of the faiths, and for peace on earth and good 
will among men. 

By that first day's exercises the great company 
was lifted to this lofty ecstasy of a new and large 
religious enthusiasm, consecration, and hope. It 
was the expressions which were most pronounced 
and pointed in the direction of the widest religious 
tolerance, liberty, and charity, and of a growing 
unity, fraternity, and peace among the faiths of 
mankind, that were received by the assembled mul- 
titude with the most marked demonstrations of 
favor. More than once that day the hearers could 
not content themselves with the usual methods of 
applause, but rose spontaneously to their feet with 
waving of handkerchiefs and cries of enthusiasm. 
For that day, at least, the races, colors, and relig- 
ions were lifted above all their differences and an- 
tagonisms, and their inmost aims and hopes flashed 
out and blended together in one glowing spiritual 
vision of a coming practical human brotherhood. 

But could this pentecostal flood of fraternal 
love, this high altitude of spiritual enthusiasm, be 



208 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

sustained for seventeen days? When the Parlia- 
ment should settle down to its more solid tasks, to 
the reading and hearing of elaborate papers, and 
the analytical presentation of the beliefs, aims, 
and work of the various churches and religions, 
would not the interest subside, the old differences 
and conflicts appear again, and the spiritual unity 
be broken and lost ? There were those present on 
that first day who almost felt sorry that anything 
more was to be attempted. They were apprehen- 
sive lest this high tide of enthusiasm for religious 
and racial brotherhood should ebb, only leaving 
more painfully evident than before the artificial 
dykes and mud-banks which were still to separate 
those who for one long day had been lifted to the 
high places of spiritual vision, where they had dis- 
cerned together the dawning era of fraternal amity 
and co-operation. But these apprehensions were 
not fulfilled. Popular interest in the meetings in- 
creased rather than diminished, and was sustained 
to the end. A crowd was ever waiting outside for 
admission to the crowded hall, to take the places of 
those who might come out, when the doors were 
opened between the readings of the papers; and 
there was hardly a single session when some un- 
expected incident did not occur or some specially 
fine sentiment was not uttered, arousing the large 
assembly to the same enthusiastic demonstrations 
that marked the first day. The key-note of the 
opening ceremonial day was not lost, indeed, in 
the work-days that followed. If twice or thrice a 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 20O, 

jarring note was heard, the discordant twang of 
some individual dogmatist's conceit, like Mr. Jo- 
seph Cook's, it was soon lost to sound, if not for- 
gotten, in the overwhelming unity of spirit which 
carried the Parliament along, amidst all differences 
of belief and statements, in the line of its declared 
purpose. And, memorable as was the opening 
day, the Parliament must yet be considered in its 
entirety, before we can comprehend its full sig- 
nificance and the possible results which may flow 
from it. 

On this question of the significance and possible 
results of the Parliament much needed light may 
be thrown by keeping in mind the specified objects 
for which this unique gathering was called and the 
rules which were to govern it. Let me, therefore, 
quote the most important of these from the printed 
statement of the general Committee of Arrange- 
ments early in 1892: — 

OBJECTS OF THE WORLD 's PARLIAMENT OF 
RELIGIONS. 

1. To bring together in conference, for the 
first time in history, the leading representatives of 
the great Historic Religions of the world. 

2. To show to men, in the most impressive way, 
what and how many important truths the various 
Religions hold and teach in common. 

3. To promote and deepen the spirit of true 
brotherhood among the Religions of the world, 
through friendly conference and mutual good 



2IO THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

understanding, while not seeking to foster the 
temper of indifferentism, and not striving to 
achieve any formal and outward unity. 

4. To set forth, by those most competent to 
speak, what are deemed the important distinctive 
truths held and taught by each Religion, and by 
the various chief branches of Christendom. 

5. To indicate the impregnable foundations of 
Theism, and the reasons for man's faith in Immor- 
tality, and thus to unite and strengthen the forces 
which are adverse to a materialistic philosophy of 
the universe. 

6. To secure from leading scholars representing 
Brahman, Buddhist, Confucian, Parsee, Mohamme- 
dan, Jewish, and other Faiths, and from represent- 
atives of the various churches of Christendom, 
full and accurate statements of the spiritual and 
other effects of the Religions which they hold upon 
the Literature, Art, Commerce, Government, Do- 
mestic and Social Life of the peoples among 
whom these Faiths have prevailed. 

7. To inquire what light each Religion has 
afforded, or may afford, to the other Religions of 
the world. 



9. To discover from competent men, what light 
Religion has to throw upon the great problems of 
the present age, especially the important questions 
connected with Temperance, Labor, Education, 
Wealth, and Poverty. 

10. To bring the nations of the earth into a 
more friendly fellowship, in the hope of securing 
permanent international peace. 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 211 



CONDITIONS AND SPECIFICATIONS. 

1. Those taking part in the Parliament . . . are 
carefully to observe the spirit and principles set 
forth in the Preliminary Address of this Com- 
mittee. 

2. The speakers accepting the invitation of the 
General Committee will state their own beliefs and 
the reasons for them with the greatest frankness, 
without, however, employing unfriendly criticism 
of other Faiths. 

3. The Parliament is to be made a grand inter- 
national assembly for mutual conference, fellow- 
ship, and information, and not for controversy, for 
worship, for the counting of votes, or for the pass- 
ing of resolutions. 

This statement of objects and regulations makes 
it clear that the intent of the Parliament was edu- 
cational and fraternal, and not propagandist. It 
was to be a mutual school of religion, wherein the 
teachers were of all faiths and the pupils of all 
faiths, — a school of religion, with picturesque 
object-lessons in the study of comparative relig- 
ions. And the prearranged programme of the 
school, both in its general tenor and spirit and 
in its specific provisions, made all the teachers, 
whether they were Jews, Christians, Parsees, 
Buddhists, Brahmans, Mohammedans, Confucians, 
or of any other faith, the peers of one another. 
Whatever might be their ecclesiastical positions or 
relations elsewhere, on that platform they stood as 



212 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

equals, each entitled to receive the same considera- 
tion and courtesy as every other. And there was 
no tribunal of appeal except the common reason 
and conscience of mankind. Whatever mental 
reservations there may have been in the minds of 
any of the speakers (and of course there were 
such) as to their own faith having a special divine 
origin miraculously attested, they agreed to meet 
in that Parliament, for the time being at least, 
other faiths as peers, and to obtrude no pre-emp- 
tive claims to an exclusive divine revelation and 
authority for their own. And in this fact lies the 
special theological significance of the Parliament. 
Whether logically comprehended as such or not, it 
was a practical change of base in the attitude of 
the Christian Church (excepting a few small lib- 
eral sects) toward the pagan world and other relig- 
ions of the globe. 

For, if it be true, as Christendom has been com- 
monly taught, that the Hebrews had only a partial 
revelation of saving truth from God, and that that 
had been dimmed and lost by their disobedience, 
and that, when Christ came, the whole world was 
sunk in trespasses and sins and utter moral dark- 
ness, and that, without the acceptance of his aton- 
ing sacrifice, all mankind was doomed to eternal 
perdition, — if this familiar system of theology be 
true, then it logically follows that Jew and Moham- 
medan and pagan must be converted to faith in 
Christ's blood to save them or be lost. And, in 
accordance with this logic, the attitude of orthodox 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 213 

Christianity toward the other religions of the world 
has hitherto been that their devotees were needy 
subjects for conversion to the one true and saving 
faith, — namely, the Christian, — but that they had 
no saving truth in their own faith. On such a 
basis of theology, since the non-Christian faiths 
were not regarded as holding any truths promotive 
of spiritual progress or efficacious to salvation, how 
could those faiths, with any logical consistency, be 
invited into a Parliament one of whose objects 
was declared to be "to show what and how many 
important truths the various Religions hold and 
teach in common " ? Or if, as Christendom for 
centuries has been systematically taught, the world 
outside of Christianity is lying under dense spirit- 
ual darkness, then what utter unreason to invite 
representatives of non-Christian faiths into this 
great Parliament of Religions to tell us "what 
light each Religion has afforded, or may afford, to 
the other Religions of the world " ! How can any 
"light" come out of "utter darkness"? Or if, out 
of Christ, the whole world be sunk and lost in tres- 
passes and sins, as all orthodox pulpits used to 
teach, then what can Brahman, Buddhist, Confu- 
cian, Parsee, or Mohammedan have to tell us of 
the spiritual effect of their faiths on personal and 
social life, as the Parliament of Religions invited 
them to do? Or, if one religion only be true 
and all others false, how can there be any "true 
brotherhood " among them, which it was one of the 
expressed objects of this Parliament "to promote 



214 THE world's parliament of religions 

and deepen"? Can there be any "spirit of 
brotherhood " between truth and falsehood? If the 
old theological claim be sound that Christianity is 
the one and only absolutely true religion, and es- 
sential to salvation, then the only possible relig- 
ious unity must be effected, not as the World's 
Parliament prospectus proposes, "through friendly 
conference and mutual good understanding among 
the Religions," but by the old way of absolute con- 
version of all the rest to the one that is true. 
Hence I affirm that the World's Parliament of 
Religions, by its recognition, in its statement of 
objects and in its programme, of the facts that the 
various great religions of the world hold certain 
important truths in common, that each of them, 
even the so-called pagan, may shed some light and 
impart some useful information for the others, and 
that among them may be fostered friendly confer- 
ence and the spirit of true brotherhood, has given 
expressed and dramatic denial of the fundamental 
principles of that orthodox scheme of theology 
which has for centuries dominated Christendom. 

Similarly, it may be said that other faiths that 
have in times past been regarded by their adher- 
ents as containing an infallible revelation of truth 
unknown to other religions have now, by their 
representation in this Parliament, made an implied, 
if not open, confession of a change of attitude 
toward the rest of the religious world. 

And this change of attitude among the faiths of 
mankind toward each other, to which the Parlia- 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 21 5 

ment of Religions has given so dramatic an expres- 
sion, can be no passing accidental occurrence. It 
is the meeting of converging tendencies which 
have for a quarter-century been noted in religious 
sentiment and thought, and been growing more and 
more marked every year. It is one of the results 
of the application of a more scientific method of 
study to the history of religions. It is a popular 
triumph of spiritual liberalism, due in part to such 
scholarly work as Professor Max Miiller has been 
doing in England, and to the Hibbert Lectures, 
and the great scholars in France and Germany and 
Holland, who have been making of comparative 
religion a science. It is due in no small degree to 
many of the Christian missionaries themselves, 
who, going out to the Orient to convert the so- 
called heathen to the one true faith, have discov- 
ered that they were not merely teachers, but had 
much of value to learn from the heathen faiths. 
One such missionary said in the Parliament the 
other day that he had found in the religion of the 
Hindus, behind the idolatries of the masses and 
the manifold names of deities, a very clear and 
pure conception of one Supreme Being; and it is a 
common thing now for missionaries, especially for 
the more observant and thoughtful among them, to 
acknowledge not only this, but the high value of 
the native moral codes of the people they are to 
convert. The Parliament of Religions has come 
as the natural effect of these various causes, as the 
picturesque climax of these converging intellectual 



2l6 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

and ethical tendencies. And let me say, further, 
that the Parliament not only significantly marks a 
change of mutual attitude among the religions of 
the world, and a special change both in attitude 
and method on the part of orthodox Christianity 
toward non-Christian faiths, but this changed rela- 
tion carries with it by logical implication a radical 
change of base from that scheme of Christian the- 
ology which has hitherto given motive and nerve 
to Christian churches for the work of their foreign 
missions. If the basis of the Parliament of Relig- 
ions were to be stated with logical consistency, it 
would be in effect an affirmation similar to that 
which has become familiar in late years to liberal 
religious faith; namely, that all religions are more 
or less divine, and all of them more or less human; 
or, as stated with more scientific accuracy by one 
of the prominent speakers in the Parliament, a rep- 
resentative of the "Broad" Church of England, 
"All religions are fundamentally more or less 
true, and all religions are superficially more or less 
false." And if methods of missionary work were 
to be shaped in logical accord with this basal 
affirmation, and upon the model of this Religious 
Parliament's own method, missions would hereafter 
be conducted not on the principle of aggressive 
propagandism and absolute conversion from one 
faith to another, but on the principle of mutual 
education. 

In strict accord with its declared intention, the 
Parliament passed no resolutions; and there is not 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 21? 

the slightest probability that it could have adopted 
any statement embodying what I am about to say. 
None the less it was in itself one of the most emi- 
nent of the increasing signs of the times that re- 
ligion is preparing to abandon its ancient basis of 
authority attested by miracle for that infinitely 
surer authority which it finds inherent in the 
constitution of human nature itself and in the vital 
relations of human nature to the universe. The 
ancient type of miracle is really dwarfed to-day 
before the stupendous wonders which science dis- 
closes as facts of nature. And if religion is to 
keep its place and power in the modern world, it 
will not longer appeal to the thaumaturgist's art 
nor beseech an unwilling god to declare himself by 
breaking the august and splendid order of his daily 
works, but will search and toil rather to find the 
ways of harmonious human adjustment with that 
order itself. Leaving the region of miracle and 
the multitude of fanciful speculations and conflict- 
ing theologies which have sprung therefrom, re- 
ligion is beginning to plant itself on the more 
solid ground of a few simple and fundamental prin- 
ciples which must commend themselves to the 
cultivated reason and conscience of mankind the 
world over. Many years ago Ram Mohun Roy, 
the originator of the Brahmo Somaj movement in 
India, published a book entitled "The Precepts of 
Jesus." It was a most excellent collection of the 
ethical and spiritual sayings of Jesus skilfully 
separated from their New Testament setting in 



21 8 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

miracle and myth. When called to account for 
this book by some of his Christian friends in 
London, who charged that it robbed Christianity 
of its supreme credentials of authority, Ram 
Mohun Roy replied that these sublime precepts 
would commend themselves by their own worth 
to the minds and hearts of his countrymen; but, 
if the appeal for their authority was not to their 
own intrinsic truth but to miracle, they would 
secure no standing in India, for the ancient re- 
ligion of India had miracles far more wonderful 
than any in the New Testament. Now the Parlia- 
ment of Religions, whatever might be the views of 
its individual members, and though they joined 
in no written statement, stood practically in the 
same position with Ram Mohun Roy. Its har- 
mony of spirit and its very existence were possible 
because its members were for the time being 
united on a few fundamental principles which com- 
mended themselves as true to the common reason 
and conscience of all. And they were joyously 
content with their simple platform of "Truth for 
authority, and not authority for truth." 

There have been opponents of the Parliament of 
Religions in Christendom and in other faiths, — 
some of them powerful opponents ecclesiastically 
considered, notably the Archbishop of Canterbury 
and the Sultan of Turkey. Most likely these oppo- 
nents have perceived the actual logical incongruity 
between the Parliament and their professed creeds, 
have seen how the missionary religions especially 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 219 

among which Christianity and Mohammedanism 
have taken the lead, were giving away their own 
case by consenting to meet the other faiths on 
terms of equality and fraternity. But, powerful by 
position as these opponents are, there appeared no 
gaps in Columbus Hall because of their absence. 
Their faiths were represented by subordinates and 
subjects who had not the fear of authority before 
their eyes. From a logical point of view the posi- 
tion of these opponents may be worthy of greater 
admiration for its soundness than was the attitude 
of some of the Parliament's speakers, which was 
that of naked emotion with no shred of logic to 
cover it. Yet the advance movements of man- 
kind are not generally made in the strict grooves 
of logic. The impelling forces of progress are 
found rather in ethical motives and sympathies of 
the heart, which may be only dimly conscious, or 
not at all conscious, of their relation to any system 
of thought. So it is safe to take our position with 
the progressive sympathies and the heart-instincts 
that are carrying mankind forward to larger, truer, 
and more loving life, even though they may be able 
to give a very poor logical account of themselves. 
As Emerson said of prayer, " In your metaphysics 
you have denied personality to the Deity; yet, 
when the devout motions of the soul come, yield 
to them heart and life, though they should clothe 
God with shape and color. Leave your theory and 
flee," — so would I say of the World's Parliament 
of Religions. Though the Roman Catholic and the 



220 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

Greek and the Presbyterian and the Mohammedan, 
and representatives of other creeds, may perchance 
have found it somewhat difficult logically to square 
their presence there with their theological beliefs, 
yet it was cause for devout congratulation that they 
fled their theory and followed their sympathies; 
that, though logic might forbid, they came and 
shook hands together, and talked together of the 
truths they held in common, and looked withal so 
radiantly happy in their fraternal action that I for 
one was very happy to be there, too, to help cheer 
on the whole illogical proceeding. I prefer to go 
forward with followers of the heart, though their 
movement may have no logical coherence with the 
theology of the head, rather than to do mental 
homage to the stanchest logicians, who are held 
fast and stagnant in the morass of false theological 
premises. To paraphrase Emerson's sentence, 
"When the fraternal motions of the soul come, 
yield to them heart and life, though they should 
lead Jew, Presbyterian, Mohammedan, Greek, and 
Catholic to join hands as cobrothers in faith. 
Leave your logic to take care of itself, and flee to 
the strongholds of the heart." And the logic will 
take care of itself. By and by it will catch up 
with the larger action and make a new statement to 
cover it. 

Hence I look for great good to come to mankind 
as a result of the fraternal mingling of faiths in 
this Religious Parliament. For one thing, I be- 
lieve it will help toward these larger statements of 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 221 

faith and a revision of old creeds. Among those 
who have come under its influence — and they are 
by no means limited to the people who were in 
person at the meetings — the sectarian spirit must 
be less narrow, the dogmatic temper less dominant. 
The new creeds may contain fewer articles and 
much less of the metaphysics of theological specu- 
lation, but a good deal more of brotherly love. 

But here, lest I should be charged with making 
a plea for mere emotional sentiment in religion as 
against logical thought, let me say that, after all, 
the conflict of which I have been speaking is not 
so much between logic and sentiment as between 
two different lines of logic in our mental activities. 
The logic of your creed is one thing: the syllogism 
may be technically all right, but the premises of it 
all wrong, and very antique. And that is what is 
the matter with the creeds of the English Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and the Turkish Sultan, 
which those high ecclesiastics have brought for- 
ward in condemnation of the World's Parliament of 
Religions. But, on the other hand, there is an- 
other course of logic at work, perhaps, in your 
mind (at work, it may be, unconsciously) toward a 
new creed from different premises. Beneath the 
fraternal religious sympathies and the heart's ethi- 
cal instincts there is a logic of thought. They are 
not mere baseless flights of feeling. What says 
Science of men's relation to the Eternal Power, to 
which all the great religions apply some name to 
signify Deity? That all men, of whatever race or 



222 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

faith or color or nation, live therefrom and therein; 
that all men, therefore, are its offspring: hence 
that all men are brothers. There, or in similar 
terms, is the logic which is beneath your fraternal 
sympathies. There is the rational thought sup- 
porting the demand of your conscience to treat 
your fellow-men as equals with you in origin and 
entitled to like opportunities with you for life's 
achievements. There is the philosophy of your 
heart's instincts when you hasten to the aid of a 
fellow-man in distress; though, if your heart's 
instincts are healthy and sound, they do not wait 
to be prodded to the Good Samaritan's duty by 
philosophy. Yet the philosophy, the reason, the 
logic is there, to be called into service if need be, 
to convict dull consciences of neglected duty, and 
to stir laggard hearts to brotherly kindness. Now 
I believe that this kind of reason, of logical 
thought, of scientific knowledge concerning the 
common origin and the social relations of men, has 
been in late years working, burrowing, more or 
less clearly or dimly, in the minds of great numbers 
of thoughtful people all round the globe; and from 
this wide-spread thought have largely come the fra- 
ternal impulses which have produced the World's 
Parliament of Religions, in itself a most practical 
and vivid illustration of the thought. And, the 
Parliament having been such a brilliant success, — 
a triumph beyond even the ardent expectations of 
its promoters, — its influence will now react to 
strengthen and multiply the thought which was its 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 223 

root, and to keep alive those active sympathies of 
practical fraternity which are the very life-breath 
of the thought. If the thought be not exercised in 
the vital air of a large liberty, it will dwindle and 
perish. 

But I look not for its death, but rather for its 
growth and increase, — the green blade to-day, but 
the ear will follow, and then the full corn in the 
ear. This idea of human fraternity, of a fraternity 
of faiths as well as races, is to be a potent factor, 
I believe, in writing the creeds of the future and 
moulding the work of all the faiths and churches. 
There will be much less in those new creeds than 
in the old ones of attempts to define God, but there 
will be a great deal more about the needs and 
duties of man. The extensive work of foreign 
missions sustained by Christendom will gradually 
develop new methods consonant with this idea. 
There will be less talk of conversion, more of edu- 
cation and elevation. There has been of late a 
dreadful fear in the orthodox world that to cease 
urging on the heathen that their ancestors who 
never heard of Christ are in the bottomless pit of 
helpless perdition is going to cut the nerve of mis- 
sionary effort; but this dread, it may be hoped, 
will not much longer trouble the minds of devout 
Christians. Even the venerable American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in its late 
sessions at Worcester, seems to have felt a whiff 
from the new religious breeze blowing from the 
Chicago Parliament, and has begun to adjust its 



224 THE world's parliament of religions 

sails, though cautiously, for a change of course. 
Who knows but that that aged corporation, relic 
of a by-gone time and theology, rejuvenated by a 
hundred new members and a new secretary, may 
yet come up abreast with the age, and at the next 
Parliament of Religions gather its missionaries 
and their expected heathen converts, still declin- 
ing conversion, into one happy company under the 
bond of human fraternity? 

But we must not expect, outwardly, any imme- 
diate great results. The progress will be slow: at 
first it may seem imperceptible. Yet it is coming. 
The great and powerful churches of Christendom 
are not going to drop their sectarian sceptres in the 
life-time of many, if any, of us. The benevolent 
Cardinal Gibbons, who, on the opening day of the 
Parliament, spoke with such entire sympathy with 
the larger breadth and brotherhood of the platform 
and seemed so fully at home upon it, when subse- 
quently he gave his discourse on the service of his 
own church to the world, fell as if by habit and 
traditional beliefs, not corrected by scholarly re- 
search, into the extravagant claims that there was 
only the faintest glimmer of moral light on earth 
before Christianity was born, and that since that 
era Catholicism has led the world in advancing the 
interests of civilization and humanity. Thus many 
of the participants in the Parliament will drop nat- 
urally again into the routine work and phrases of 
the sects. Sectarianism and dogmatism have had 
such a vigorous life and held kingly sway so long 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 225 

that they will die hard. Their sceptres are begin- 
ning to waver, but few of us shall ever see them 
entirely prostrated in the dust. Yet we shall — 
nay, do already — see them floating the white flags 
of truce and amity and co-operation. 

And when, too, we consider the differences 
among the religions of the earth, differences of 
ceremony and custom, and even of belief, which 
are based on differences of environment and the 
traditions of centuries, it is evident that it would 
be irrational to expect great transformations in any 
brief period of time. Some of these differences, 
it is likely, will remain in perpetual existence. 
Truth and sincerity do not require that all relig- 
ions shall be pared and fitted to one pattern, more 
than that all individual persons shall be fashioned 
after one model of temperament. Such uniformity 
is neither to be expected nor desired. But, with 
the differences, there may yet be unity in spirit 
and aim and work, — unity, also, in the funda- 
mental principles of belief and purpose. And this 
kind of unity among the world's faiths is already 
dawning. This is the fraternity of religions which 
the World's Parliament has made evident as a pos- 
sibility, and has done not a little to further toward 
realization. More frequently than any other this 
idea kept pressing into utterance in the addresses 
of the seventeen days. "This Parliament," said 
the Catholic Archbishop of New Zealand, "begins 
a new era for mankind of true brotherly love.'' 
The eloquent and inspired Mozoomdar, apostle of 



226 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

the Brahmo-Somaj of India, that modern theistic 
church growing from the roots of ancient Brahman- 
ism, said that he represented a religious society 
"whose only creed is the harmony of religions, 
and whose only denomination is the unity of all 
denominations." It was the white-robed Dharma- 
pala who pleaded for "mutual benevolence, toler- 
ance, gentleness, love, brotherhood, compassion," 
in the name of the gentle Buddha. And Prince 
Wolkonsky, of Russia, and of the Russian Greek 
Church, asked, "Why should it not be that all 
these religions which have so much in common 
should sink their differences and find a common 
ground of action in the interest of mankind?" 
Principal Grant, from Canada, exclaimed that it 
was cause for profound humiliation and shame that 
Christianity, with the example and teaching of its 
founder before it for nineteen centuries, had only 
just found the right way to religious unity and fra- 
ternity. The Brahman monk from India, Vive- 
kananda, in orange-colored robes and turban, 
"fervently believed that the new liberty bell which 
rang that morning on the assembling of the Parlia- 
ment was to ring out the death-knell to all fanati- 
cism, to all persecution with the sword or the pen, 
and to all uncharitable feeling between brethren, 
wending their way through different paths to the 
same goal." Hon. Pung Kwang Yu, imperial del- 
egate from China, found the famous word of his 
great teacher Confucius, "reciprocity," as express- 
ing the sum of human duty, illustrated with new 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 22J 

meaning and glory in the Parliament, which he 
called a noble school of comparative religion, 
where "each may discover what is excellent in 
other religions than his own." The high priest of 
Japanese Shintoism believed that "all the various 
religions of the world are based on the funda- 
mental truth of religion, and that, since it is now 
impracticable to combine them into one religion, 
the special religionists ought at least to conquer 
hostile feelings, to try to find out the common 
truth hidden under different forms of religious 
thought, and to combine their strength in working 
for the common objects of the religions," and espe- 
cially against wars and disputes between nations, 
and for international justice and peace, and for a 
supreme court of the world to take international 
disputes from the tribunal of war to the tribunal 
of equity and reason. Dr. Momerie, the Broad 
Churchman from England, said: "To each religion 
have been attached creeds and dogmas which the 
founders never anticipated. This conference will 
enable us to see more clearly the fundamental 
truths. It will show how unimportant are the 
differences of creed, and how important are the 
things on which we are agreed." The venerable 
editor of the New York Evangelist, Dr. Field, 
spoke of his training under the straitest sect of 
the Puritans, but of his own observations in per- 
sonal travel among the different religions in the 
East as teaching him that they are "all sharers of 
the one Infinite Light and Love." A young Mo- 



228 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

hammedan delegate from Constantinople, with an 
unpronounceable name, said that "the young men 
of the Orient, from the waters of Japan to the 
ALgean, have the keenest interest in the outcome 
of this Parliament as a basis for the brotherhood 
of man." 

And so the words of amity and brotherhood 
among the faiths kept pressing to the lips, and, 
white-winged, flew out into the free air. From 
Japan and Australasia, from China and Canada, 
from Greek Church and Quaker preacher, from Eng- 
lish Churchman and American Presbyterian, from 
ancient Armenia and the newest State of the New 
World, the sentiments of brotherhood were heard, 
as they went their way, to echo and re-echo around 
the globe. It may almost be said, indeed, that 
this Parliament of Religions has given the creed 
of the coming universal Church, if such a Church 
shall ever grow out of the growing fraternity of 
feeling among the different faiths, and shall ever 
have occasion to state its beliefs. Though the 
Parliament stated nothing by resolutions, yet by 
general assent it seemed to be assumed, and indi- 
vidually was again and again declared, that the 
common foundation on which the various faiths 
stood there together was the recognition of Su- 
preme Being, without any anxiety to make or re- 
quire a definition of the supreme existence and 
attributes, a recognition of human brotherhood, 
and an expressed purpose to search for all truth and 
to toil unceasingly for human welfare. A church 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 229 

need not have a written creed, but it must have 
convictions and purposes if it is to be a vital power 
in the world. And for a statement of convictions 
and purposes, large, free, inclusive, and rational, 
I doubt if any religious organization can find any- 
thing much broader, stronger, or better than these 
four fundamental principles, corner-stones of the 
platform on which the Parliament of the world's 
faiths found its basis of agreements. 

The possible results to which I have here re- 
ferred as growing out of the Parliament are of the 
nature of changes to be effected in existing relig- 
ious institutions and methods through the slow 
processes of evolution and under the transforming 
touch of scientific truth and of a clearer conception 
and intenser feeling of human brotherhood. But 
let me suggest, in conclusion, two ways in which a 
more immediate effect may be produced. First, 
why may not a Parliament of the World's Faiths 
be continued and perpetuated, its sessions to be 
held every five years in different cities and coun- 
tries of the globe? Such meetings would serve to 
keep alive and further to cultivate the spirit of 
fraternity among the faiths, to which so strong an 
impulse has now been given, and would hasten the 
forces of evolution in their transforming, educat- 
ing, and unifying work. An ecumenical council 
every five years, to consist of representatives from 
all the great religions and churches of the world, 
selected for their learning, devoutness, character, 
and practical ability, would serve as a valuable 



230 THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

international exchange for religious ideas and 
methods, and might become a mighty power in 
advancing the interests of humanity and establish- 
ing the principles of justice and peace in the con- 
duct of nations toward each other. Second, and 
finally, why should not those who are finding secta- 
rian traditions and methods of any kind to be fet- 
ters, those who have already come out to this large 
place of liberty, hospitality, and fraternity in re- 
ligion, and care not for any of the denominational 
names and conflicts except as they may represent 
heroic history, those who stand now essentially on 
the fundamental principles which the great historic 
faiths of the world are shown to hold in common, — 
why should not these draw together and join their 
forces in churches of the new dispensation, in 
churches of the new. covenant of man with man and 
of the new thought of the Eternal, — that new 
thought of the Eternal which science teaches car- 
ries in its bosom a closer, surer covenant between 
the Eternal Power and man than ever the Hebrews 
conceived to have been made between their nation 
and Jehovah? The name of this coming religion 
awaits. Its organization awaits. But its spirit, 
its thought, its aspiration, are here. They are in 
the atmosphere of this new age. They call for 
apostles to voice the new faith, and to organize its 
service around the earth. And of whatever name 
these churches may be, and whether they be new 
churches or old ones transformed by new ideas, 
may they be linked together by this common bond, 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 23 1 

— in that, to use the quaint New Testament 
phrase, they shall all be "lively stones" in the 
structure of the coming universal, catholic Church 
of humanity. 

" Tread, kingly gospel, through the nations tread ! 
With all the noblest virtues in thy train ; 
Be all to thy blest freedom captive led, 

And Truth, the great Emancipator, reign." 



SEALED ORDERS. 



In time of war vessels are often despatched from 
port by governments under sealed orders. Not 
even do their commanders know their ultimate 
destination or the special mission which they are 
to discharge. They only know at the start the 
general direction which they are to take. They 
sail out on the expanse of the ocean with no partic- 
ular port in view, but directed only to steer for a 
certain position of latitude and longitude on the 
open sea; and, not until that position is reached, 
are the sealed orders which they carry in their 
pockets to be opened. Then for the first time 
they learn whither they are to voyage and for what 
task they have been sent. 

And this very aptly illustrates the course of 
human life in general. We all begin the voyage 
of life under sealed orders. Not a child is born 
whose future is not wrapped in mystery. There 
in embryo is the man or woman ; but what will be 
the career of the man or woman nothing in the 
child fully foretells, nor can the parents prophesy 
it. What talents it may develop, what vocations 
will be chosen or necessitated, what tasks and re- 
sponsibilities may be assumed, what trials and 
tragedies or what successes and happinesses may 



SEALED ORDERS 



233 



come in the unfolding story, — all these are a 
sealed book in infancy. We start in life on an 
open sea. We know the harbor from which we 
depart, and we linger near its familiar shores; but 
we know not the harbor to which we sail nor the 
duties which await us there. Yet Time is a mas- 
ter that outranks all other authorities, and bids us 
depart. We can only have, at first, general direc- 
tions, which are to be given in parental training 
and education, and which are to take us, as it 
were, to a certain moral and mental latitude and 
longitude, where the orders which contain our call- 
ing in life may be opened to reveal the mission on 
which we are sent. 

Yet these general directions are of supreme im- 
portance for the time. There is a certain mental 
and moral equipment which is necessary to any 
kind of success in life, whatever the vocation or 
career is to be. And this equipment is what the 
home and school training should give to youth. 
As these general directions at the beginning of 
life's voyage are all the guidance that we can pos- 
sibly have, so it is a matter of the gravest moment 
that they be faithfully followed. The whole differ- 
ence between success and failure in the special 
calling afterward may depend on such obedience. 
The commander who sails from port under sealed 
orders knows well that his first duty is to steer for 
the spot where his orders are to be opened. If he 
sail over the ocean according to his own free fancy 
before going to the spot indicated, or if he go in 



234 



SEALED ORDERS 



another direction, assuming that a certain lapse of 
time is all that need be considered before he opens 
his orders, he may open them too late, or too far 
from the place of service, to accomplish the task 
assigned him. If the English government de- 
spatches a naval vessel down the Thames to-day 
with orders to be opened when she reaches the 
middle of the North Sea, her officer does not go 
down to the Strait of Gibraltar to open them, 
assuming that his service is to be in the Mediter- 
ranean, nor does he go to the North Sea by way of 
the Atlantic Ocean. He knows that not only must 
he open the orders in order to obey them, but that 
space and time are important elements in respect 
to his being in a position to obey them when 
opened. He must therefore first obey implicitly 
the general directions he has received. In like 
manner, though we all begin the journey of life 
under sealed orders, unless, when the time for 
breaking the seals has arrived, we have reached 
through educational training a certain moral and 
mental position, we may not be able to accomplish 
the service to which our natural faculties call us. 

But, even after the period of opening manhood 
and womanhood arrives, when vocations begin to 
be chosen, and the special allotments in life begin 
to disclose themselves, and careers to open, there 
is still a very large element of uncertainty min- 
gling in human affairs. Man may be sure of his 
endeavors, but not always of the result of his en- 
deavors. We may know our desires, our choices, 



SEALED ORDERS 



235 



our aspirations, but not whether this or that is to 
be the fulfilment. We may steer our course to a 
particular object; but what may develop from that 
object, what may be hidden behind it, we are 
unable to say. There are too many personal wills 
acting besides our own, too many forces in opera- 
tion besides human forces, too many moral hazards 
on all sides which may touch our lives, too much 
of undeveloped and unknown possibility in our own 
natures, for any person to be able to say at the 
beginning of life's activities just what and how 
much he will have accomplished at the end. Thus 
we embark even on the sea of our special careers 
under sealed orders. Young persons prepare them- 
selves for some particular work or profession, — 
for law, medicine, art, the ministry, teaching, 
trade, manufacturing, or mechanical industry; but 
they little know the special chances, associations, 
experiences, which their occupation may bring, and 
which may profoundly affect their characters and 
their happiness. Marriage is entered under sealed 
orders. Love is proverbially blind. It knows its 
present satisfaction. But it little foresees, and it 
is best it should not, either the possible heights 
of happiness which may be in store for it if it 
be genuine and remain true, or the possible dis- 
appointments and sorrows which may come even to 
the truest hearts and into the truest homes. Much 
less does it picture the depths of misery which may 
be the fruit of its own falsity; for of that falsity it 
cannot beforehand dream as even among the possi- 



236 



SEALED ORDERS 



bilities. The wife, entering the sacred ways of 
motherhood, goes down into the valley of shadows 
for the consummation of the hope of her heart and 
the hope of the race, but knows not whether she 
shall emerge on the side of time or the side of 
eternity. Or, safe from all perils brought, she 
stands amid the flock of her growing little ones, 
their mother, their responsible home educator, but 
still under sealed orders. She sees an opening 
faculty here, she watches an unfolding temperament 
there, tries to bring out the good and check the 
evil, under a keen sense of momentous duty, yet 
with an ever-growing consciousness that she is 
working amid mysteries. Could she only see what 
the future is to bring to these young minds, — 
these buds of mental and moral promise, — how the 
faculties are finally to turn, for what spheres the 
temperaments are to adapt themselves, by what 
means passion might best be trained to self-con- 
trol, how much more easily could her great obliga- 
tions be discharged! But she cannot see. The 
seal of the future remains unbroken. She can only 
do the best she can on present knowledge, and 
wait in faith for the time when the hidden orders 
can be opened. 

This element of uncertainty clings to our careers 
through life. We are never quite rid of it, even 
though we reach life's goals and may be rich with 
its successes. The morrow is always hidden. 
Some sealed order that we little suspect may be 
opened with the dawn of another day. We may be 



SEALED ORDERS 



237 



called suddenly to face some sorrow, to grapple 
with some calamity. No life is exempt from a 
change of fortune. Sooner or later the harrow 
goes over us, the burden comes upon our shoulders, 
the messenger of death knocks at our door, the 
summons comes for us to meet quickly some unex- 
pected emergency. And the way in which these 
orders are met which summon us precipitately to 
untried duties tests the secret core of character as 
cannot the ordinary responsibilities of life. For 
the latter one may be on his guard and make a spe- 
cial preparation. For the sudden emergency he 
must draw on general resources of strength, which 
may or may not be adequate for all duties. They 
are the elect souls who are in the best condition to 
meet and obey the hidden orders of life, at what- 
ever spot or moment these may be opened. 

And there are sealed orders that not any emer- 
gency in life, but only death, can open. As we 
came into this life under sealed orders, so under 
sealed orders do we make our final exit. We sail 
out upon the great sea of the hereafter, knowing 
not what awaits us. Even though there be a firm 
faith, an unshaken confidence, that the future, as 
the present, must bring life, there is yet no sure 
revelation, only conjecture how, where, what, that 
life is to be. The most ardent Christian believer 
does not profess to define the where or the how 
of his heaven. Though Spiritualism, with all its 
claims, were to be admitted, it really answers satis- 
fyingly no questions that go to the depths of things 



238 



SEALED ORDERS 



save the fact of continued existence; and to many 
minds its petty details of professed revelation mar 
its evidence of even that fact. We go out of life, 
as we came into it, therefore, enshrouded in mys- 
tery. We leave life's familiar harbor and sail out 
upon the vast unknown, with only one unsealed 
order, — to set sail. All other directions are 
hidden till the voyage is begun. We know not 
whether the country to which that journey leads is 
beyond the verge of this planet or still connected 
with it, though invisible to any mortal eyes. 
Will the stars still be above us as pilots, or will 
they, too, be hidden? Question as we may, no 
answer comes. The orders are closely sealed. We 
only know that we cannot go beyond the limits of 
an infinite universe, that we cannot be dropped off 
into empty space, that, even "if our bark sinks, 
'tis to a deeper sea." 

Let us look at some illustrations of our theme of 
a public nature. When, four hundred years ago, 
Columbus set sail westward across the Atlantic, 
he, too, was under sealed orders. He thought he 
was his own master, thought he knew his destina- 
tion, — the East Indies, — and that he had only to 
follow the chart in his own brain to obtain his ex- 
pected results. But his ship carried other com- 
mands than any he knew, carried a higher master 
than himself; and, when these sealed orders, held 
in the hand of historic fate, were opened, it was 
not a new way to Asia that he was sent to dis- 
cover, but the New World of America. Our 



SEALED ORDERS 



239 



Puritan forefathers, — how little knew they of the 
results of their voyage, or even of the destiny in 
store for themselves, when they put to sea from 
Plymouth, England, for the New World! The one 
order open to them was to find a place where they 
would be free to follow their religious convictions 
according to their own consciences. But in the 
sealed orders which they brought from a Higher 
Power were the schools, the churches, the civiliza- 
tion, the character, the popular government of New 
England and a cordon of free States across the 
American continent, wherein soul liberty should be 
guaranteed to all. Our fathers of the Revolution, 
again, entered that contest with sealed orders in 
their pockets. They thought to obtain their rights 
as colonists under Great Britain. To resist unjust 
taxation, to escape the imposition of a foreign mili- 
tary police, to have the rights of Englishmen, — 
this was their aim. Separation from the mother 
country was not at first dreamed of. Even when 
Washington drew his sword in Cambridge as com- 
mander-in-chief of all the colonial armies, inde- 
pendence of Great Britain was a sealed book, of 
whose secret scarcely a whisper was heard. The 
same lesson is enforced in the remarkable career of 
that silent man of destiny, General Grant. In the 
modest beginning of his service in the war of the 
Rebellion who could have read his great ending? 
Though he was a graduate of West Point, and had 
somewhat distinguished himself as a young officer 
in the Mexican War, he was so modest, so little 



240 



SEALED ORDERS 



known, that his letter to the Secretary of War 
offering his services in any capacity was not 
deemed important enough to notice; and, on going 
to Cincinnati with the thought that he might find 
a place on General McClellan's staff, he went 
home again without even gaining admission to that 
officer's presence. He went back to the work of 
drilling the volunteer companies of Illinois, which 
he had taken up from pure patriotism immediately 
on the issue of President Lincoln's first call for 
troops, serving for several weeks without even a 
commission from the governor of his State. But 
all the time the sealed orders were waiting for him. 
The worth of the man for the work needed was dis- 
closed whenever there came any kind of test. He 
was always equal to the task assigned, always ready 
for the emergency. And so the sealed orders, that 
contained his destiny and the nation's destiny 
enwrapped together, were opened one after another, 
as he went on from success to success, from com- 
mand to command, until the final seal was broken, 
and the Rebellion went down before his legions at 
Appomattox. Or take a career the very antipodes 
of that of military success, — a career of command- 
ing moral success. Garrison little dreamed of the 
contest on which he was entering when he began, 
a mere boy in years, to think and to write on the 
iniquities of holding human beings in bondage. 
The Eternal Power that makes for righteousness 
was testing the moral mettle of the man. It rang 
true, and little by little the sealed orders of his 



SEALED ORDERS 



241 



career were opened. Each duty, faithfully and 
courageously discharged, led to the opening of a 
larger duty. In the first number of the Liberator, 
in words that rang through the land like the shot 
of the embattled farmers at Concord and Lexing- 
ton, he took command of the moral forces of the 
nation in the gigantic conflict against the domes- 
tic, commercial, and national power of the institu- 
tion of slavery. He little thought that he was to 
live to see that power demolished. The drama 
proceeded, one act opening after another; and the 
moral commander was alert and prepared for every 
opportunity, equipped for every emergency in the 
long and bitter conflict. He counselled not with 
prudence, with policy, with wealth, nor with fame, 
— not even with the expediency of saving the 
union as the prior duty. His sole query was, 
What does justice command to-day? That order 
opened and obeyed, the next followed in due sea- 
son, and the next, until the final seal in that con- 
test, too, was broken, and there came the decree of 
emancipation, and the slave rose up a citizen and a 
voter. 

All the great moral and religious teachers of the 
world confirm the same lesson, — Buddha, Confu- 
cius, Socrates, Jesus. None of them foresaw at 
the beginning of their careers what they were to 
pass through, what weight of duties they were to 
meet. They began their great missions under 
sealed orders. They went down to their graves 
without seeing all that they had done. They 



242 



SEALED ORDERS 



wrought in faith, and were ready to seal their 
testimony with their blood, yet were not permitted 
to see the full fruit of their works. Within their 
deeds lay greater deeds concealed. When Jesus 
went to be baptized of John, he knew not that he 
carried in his bosom an order to found a new relig- 
ion, which was to abrogate the dispensation of 
John's baptism. Confucius began his pre-eminent 
career of public service in China when a youth of 
twenty years in being appointed to the humble, 
though responsible, position of keeper of the pub- 
lic stores of grain. As keeper of the stores he 
said, "My calculations must all be right; that is 
all I have to care about." And making his calcu- 
lations right, putting his virtue into this simple 
office, the next year witnessed his promotion to the 
charge of the public fields and lands. Another 
order was unsealed. And then he said: "The land 
must be well tilled. The oxen and sheep must be 
fat and strong and superior. That is all I have to 
care about." And thus he went on, putting his 
whole moral faithfulness into whatsoever work he 
was called to do, until, passing from one office to 
another, he rose to the position of prime minister, 
and became the trusted adviser of kings, the moral 
censor of his country, the collector and transmitter 
of its ancient wisdom, and the wise educator and 
example for thousands of generations to come. 

And such examples also teach that, though much 
of the most important work of life, on account of 
the element of uncertainty running through all 



SEALED ORDERS 



243 



human affairs, must be done as it were under 
sealed orders, yet this need not and should not lead 
to any doctrine of fatalism. These persons were 
able to do the duties assigned them when the time 
for the revelation of those duties came, because 
of their docility and their faithfulness in all the 
minor duties that went before. They had the 
ready heart, the equipped mind, the prepared 
spirit. By obedience to each day's command, as it 
had come to them, however small and however in- 
complete it might seem, they had placed them- 
selves in the moral latitude and longitude where 
the larger order, when it was unsealed, could be 
promptly and effectively obeyed. Their own moral 
faithfulness to whatsoever light had been given had 
indeed led the way to the larger and clearer revela- 
tion, and made it possible. 

Nor, again, is any important order that concerns 
present duty hidden. The sealed order is for the 
future. The bridge is not to be crossed until it is 
reached. But it will not be reached by waiting for 
it by the roadside. The duty for to-day is always 
an open one. It may be a humble one, the lot 
where it is cast may be narrow; yet it is none the 
less needful, and faithfulness to it none the less 
important. It is a necessary and artistic part of 
the great drama of life, without which the larger 
and succeeding duties will miss their needed prepa- 
ration and support. 

Further, there are certain moral qualities that 
are the essential equipment for the right perform- 



244 



SEALED ORDERS 



ance of all life's genuine commands, whenever and 
wherever the seals shall be broken. These are the 
single eye, the pure heart, the incorruptible con- 
science, the humane sympathy, the unquailing 
courage and strength that can hold the helm to the 
line of reason and right, let storm and tempest 
rage, or sunshine allure. Whoever is thus piloted 
journeys as calmly and safely in night and storm 
as when he voyages by light and day under clear 
skies. These qualities make all duties perform- 
able, however suddenly revealed, all trials passable, 
all sorrows bearable. These furnish the constant 
woof for all substantial character as it is woven 
day by day, year by year, in the loom of time. 

We are all spinners at Time's wheel. We must 
all contribute our part, great or small, good or ill, 
to the great world-life. Often we may not be able 
to see how our work is to fit in with the completed 
web of the whole, or to be of any avail. Often, 
indeed, we are blind spinners (as Helen Hunt 
Jackson pictures), working by feeling and not by 
sight. Yet feeling may become as sure a guidance 
as sight; and, if we are but faithful to the ap- 
pointed task of the hour, we may do our work in 
faith and confidence and joyous hope. All good 
work finds its fitting place. It makes its own sta- 
bility, its own qualities of endurance. Perhaps 

" Like a blind spinner in the sun, 
I tread my days, 
Yet know that all the threads will run 
Appointed ways ; 



SEALED ORDERS 245 

I know each day will bring its task, 
And, being blind, no more I ask. 



" Sometimes the threads so rough and fast 

And tangled fly, 
I know wild storms are sweeping past, 

And fear that I 
Shall fall ; but dare not try to find 
A safer place, since I am blind. 

" I know not why, but I am sure 

That tint and place, 
In some great fabric to endure 

Past time and race, 
My threads will have." 

Such qualities as these keep the identity of char- 
acter amid all time's changes, and through all 
duties and circumstances. One who is permeated 
with the spirit and power of such moral principles 
can never be at a loss how to act in any strait of 
life, can never be lost — can never be otherwise 
than at home — in any moral realm of the universe; 
and, when the final seal of all earthly orders is 
broken, and the summons is sounded to depart on 
that journey whence no traveller returns, such a 
soul cannot go to a strange country, but to a land 
with which it is already familiar. Moral realms 
are not separated by space nor time nor outward 
condition. Whoever lives a life of righteousness 
on whatever planet, in however lowly sphere, 
dwells now in heaven and inhabiteth eternity. 



WHEAT AND TARES. 



" Let both grow together till the harvest." — Matt. xiii. 30. 

Jesus' parable of the tares, which were to be 
allowed to grow with the wheat until the time of 
harvest, suggests one aspect of the moral condition 
of human society that may profitably engage our 
attention this morning. Note that I take only the 
point of the growing together, and not the conclu- 
sion of the parable. Within the questions of the 
existence of evil and of the continuance of evil is 
involved the subsidiary question, Why should evil 
be allowed in such close association with good 
as to imperil the existence of the latter? And 
this question touches human life at so many prac- 
tical points that it probably perplexes and worries 
more people than does the more metaphysical ques- 
tion, Why should evil exist at all? Evil and good 
are so intricately blended — in the relations of 
social life, in the home, in marriage, in problems 
of education, in affairs of politics, in questions of 
recreation and amusement, in matters of trade and 
business, aye, in the individual heart — that some- 
where to almost every person the query must daily 
arise, How can I here, at this point of experience, 
secure the good and escape the evil that lies close 



WHEAT AND TARES 



247 



beside it? In the midst of the commonest duties 
required of us there lurk temptations that might 
work our ruin. Accompanying our richest bless- 
ings come seeds of evil that may fructify in 
curses. Within our best hopes are possibilities 
that may overshadow them with despair. While 
we lift our heads into a clear atmosphere of joy, a 
deep chasm of disappointment and sorrow may be 
ready to yawn at our feet. We thrust forth our 
hands with courage and enthusiasm to the culture 
of certain virtues ; we draw them back pricked with 
the thorns of vices that are growing on the same 
field. Thus, everywhere we find the wheat and the 
tares together, the good and the evil side by side, 
in the same soil, growing, of course, from differ- 
ent yet from intermingled roots. 

Now, however much we might be disposed to 
complain of this state of things and to impeach the 
wisdom of the Power that has so arranged it, the 
complaint and the impeachment are alike useless. 
Wiser is it to accept the facts of existence as 
we find them, observe carefully the natural moral 
suggestions which lie in them, and then bring 
out of the facts the best result possible. It is 
very evident, from the experience of mankind, 
that good and evil are in such close neighborhood 
for a purpose, — at least, that the mightiest re- 
sults pertaining to the world's progress have 
depended upon this proximity. On the mutual 
relation between good and evil on account of their 
necessitated existence side by side turns the drama 



248 



WHEAT AND TARES 



of the life of mankind. This is the fulcrum of 
all historical movement, — the point whence we 
may trace the development and education of the 
human race. 

Various attempts have been made from time to 
time, under the auspices of different religions and 
nationalities, to make an unnatural separation of 
good and evil, — to withdraw, for instance, good 
and pure persons into a society by themselves, to 
shut them off from contact with the motley world, 
in the hope that they in their protected enclosure 
would not only be safer themselves from the 
world's evil, but might send out into the world an 
influence for redeeming it. But no such experi- 
ments appear to have been successful in attaining 
either object. Such protected enclosures have not, 
on the one hand, kept out the power of evil. Cor- 
ruption has somehow found entrance into these 
consecrated places. And, on the other hand, the 
devout persons thus set apart from the world, if 
they have preserved their own integrity, have too 
often become too ignorant of the world's condition 
and needs and ways to be efficient workers against 
its vices. So, in spite of all such attempts arbi- 
trarily to separate them, the wheat and the tares 
have continued to grow together side by side. 

We may say, indeed, reasoning from the history 
of the past, that the world has been built on the 
plan of self-improvement. Whatever Supreme 
Power may have initiated and vitalized the process 
of advancement, that process has been carried on 



WHEAT AND TARES 



249 



through the action of finite agencies. Within the 
finite world itself have been stored the forces for 
overcoming and casting out its own evils. Though 
the agencies are necessarily imperfect, they have 
been gifted with the power to advance the world 
toward perfection. The good elements, by strug- 
gling against the evil, have increased their own 
strength, and have thus gradually brought the evil 
under their dominion. This is the law of the 
world's development and progress. It has been in 
a certain sense the law of the material world, and 
it is especially the law of the human world. Man 
has not been lifted out of evil toward good by any 
power extraneous to him and acting independently 
of his own exertions. The necessary regenerating 
power has been placed in man himself. He is 
himself the field of the struggle between the oppos- 
ing forces on which his fate depends. His own 
education, enlightenment, moral advancement, are 
the result of the struggle. He secures the good, 
creates it, in fact, by conquest of the evil. To put 
the good and the evil, therefore, at once by an 
unnatural division into separate fields would be, if 
such a division were possible, a reversal of the 
plan of the universe. 

First, the theory that in morals the wheat and 
the tares ought to be separated loses sight of the 
primary fact of all, — the moral improvement and 
salvation of the evil. It might be a very comfort- 
able thing, if good people could be permitted to 
dwell together in a country by themselves, where 



250 



WHEAT AND TARES 



they could have exclusive management of affairs. 
But what of the bad people who would thus be left 
together in a country by themselves? Are they 
to be left to go to perdition? left alone to their 
own folly and wickedness and wretchedness? left 
to prey upon and torment and outrage and still 
further to debase and dehumanize each other? 
Have the good no responsibility, no duty, no pity 
toward the bad ? Such a plan would be as inhuman 
as it is unnatural. We can hardly suppose it pos- 
sible that such a community of utterly bad people 
would be capable of regenerating themselves. 
And, even on the theories of supernatural regen- 
eration, it has always been allowed that the super- 
natural power must have natural agencies for its 
communication. Hence the alleged need of the 
preacher, the missionary, the exhorter, the tract, 
the revival meeting, the hymn and prayer, and all 
the machinery and power of the visible Church for 
the sake of converting and saving people. The 
source of the regenerating power might be super- 
natural ; but it is admitted that it made use of these 
natural instrumentalities to accomplish its objects, 
— that is, made use of persons already redeemed, 
already supposed to be good, to redeem and convert 
the bad. But the hypothesis that the bad are sepa- 
rated in a community by themselves and the good 
by themselves forbids any such intercommunication 
even for the sake of saving the bad. The gulf 
prophesied in that terrific parable of Abraham and 
Lazarus is already fixed, so that none can pass from 



WHEAT AND TARES 



251 



one side to the other. The wicked are left to their 
doom. And hence the question comes, by way of 
corollary, whether that could be a genuine human 
goodness which could thus, for the sake of peace 
and quiet and its own unhindered development, 
separate itself from all contact with wicked people 
in some exclusive community? Are not sympathy, 
compassion, and helpful charity toward the wicked 
necessary elements of goodness? Can he be a 
good man himself who can let his brother fall into 
a pit at his side without an effort to save him? 
Love to one's brother man, shown in active en- 
deavors for his welfare, is certainly the highest 
test of human goodness; and how can any manifest 
this quality who strive to get away from their un- 
fortunate brothers when they most need their help? 
The very hypothesis of a separation of the good 
from the evil in the affairs of the world is shown 
to be logically untenable by the argument, rednctio 
ad absurdum ; since, if any persons should have a 
disposition to depart into some secluded retreat to 
care for their own interests and to leave the wicked 
to their fate, they would, by that very fact, prove 
themselves to be wanting in that benevolence 
which is the most essential quality of goodness, 
and hence would themselves have to be excluded 
from that select abode as not good enough. They 
would exhibit a moral selfishness, an ambition to 
secure the highest seats in spiritual places, an 
appetite for the first chance to the good things of 
personal enjoyment, which would certainly soon 



252 



WHEAT AND TARES 



breed the dire results of evil in their new home if 
they were to be admitted to it. 

And this suggests the further question whether 
any such division of the good and the bad as indi- 
viduals, even if it were natural and desirable, could 
be possible. Who are to go with the bad? Or, 
harder question, Who will go with the good? 
Will you? Will I? Judged by our aspirations, 
our prayers, our endeavors perhaps, we would. 
But shall we be so self-righteous as to assume that 
our conduct would take us that way? Who is to 
draw the line, and where is it to be drawn? Do 
you say, Let it be drawn by the public judgment of 
the courts of law, by the line of prison walls? 
But how ineffective a separation would thereby be 
accomplished ! You know that there are vastly more 
of wicked and morally dangerous people outside of 
prisons than in them. Would you draw the line at 
the openly degraded and socially outcast classes of 
population? But, again, you know that there are 
many persons who are morally degraded, and who, 
except for the accident of birth or wealth or sex, 
might be socially outcast, who yet move in repu- 
table circles of society. And you know that, even 
in the classes called degraded and outcast, there 
are not a few individuals who have honest and true 
aspirations, and who, in spite of their surround- 
ings, maintain a virtuous character. Will you 
draw the line, then, between actual virtue and 
actual vice wherever found, letting the line run 
wherever it will, separating families, passing 



WHEAT AND TARES 



253 



through communities and neighborhoods without 
any reference to the lines of social distinction, 
drawing the bad out of good circles and the good 
out of bad, and thus dividing people according to 
their real moral worth, as it might be viewed by an 
Omniscient Eye? But what power less than Om- 
niscience could survey that line? Nay, would not 
even Omniscience have to run such a line through 
individual characters as well as between individ- 
uals? Where is the person who, at least to his 
own eye, is wholly good? Even Jesus refused to 
be called good when the young man addressed him 
as "Good Master." And what man is there whom 
any one but himself would dare to pronounce 
wholly bad? The good and the bad, the virtue 
and the vice, intermingle in individual hearts and 
characters. The struggle goes on there, in the 
secret places of personal temptation and action, as 
well as in the broad fields of the world outside; 
and unless we are to have a mutilation of personal 
character, a division of our very personality, there 
can be no arbitrary separation of the good and evil 
elements in our earthly life. 

I said above that the theory that in morals the 
wheat and the tares ought to be separated loses 
sight of the primary fact of all in the social educa- 
tion of the human race; namely, the moral im- 
provement and salvation of the evil. But the 
questions just started, as well as the common expe- 
rience of mankind, show us that the theory loses 
sight hardly less of the welfare of the good, — 



254 



WHEAT AND TARES 



misses, indeed, some of the principal means by 
which the good qualities of character are nurtured 
and maintained. There can be no question that 
many of the most substantial virtues of mankind 
are acquired by struggle with and conquest over 
evil. The finite moral consciousness itself appears 
to have been wrought out under the stern disci- 
pline of experience, to which the primitive human 
and ante-human races were subjected in the strug- 
gle for existence. And the education of this moral 
faculty, from its first rude manifestations to its 
present height of culture, has been by no smooth 
road, by no course of easy lessons, but by the 
severest conflict and battle with hindering condi- 
tions, — in short, by constant struggle with oppos- 
ing evils. Whatever theories and fancies we may 
like to entertain of a possibly better world than 
our own, in which men should have been gifted 
from the outset with only virtuous desires and 
capacities, that certainly is not the plan of the 
world we live in. Virtue, according to the plan of 
our world, is a possession which man is to achieve 
by his career, not an endowment with which he 
sets out. There may be certain graces of charac- 
ter, certain excellences of spiritual temperament 
and moral disposition, with which, especially at 
this stage of hereditary moral accumulation, indi- 
vidual human beings may be born. But virtue is 
a quality of character that is not born, that does 
not appear in cradles, but has to be earned by the 
solid moral labor of life; and whoever starts with 



WHEAT AND TARES 



255 



hereditary advantages at birth is only put under 
obligation to earn more, to reach a higher standard 
of virtue, than he who comes into existence 
weighted with an inheritance of moral evil. But, 
however we begin, it is the plan of the world we 
inhabit that a large measure of the discipline by 
which our moral education is secured comes 
through our necessary contact with evil. This is 
the school where the sinews of our virtue grow, 
and moral character is strengthened and estab- 
lished. So long as the moral ideal keeps its su- 
premacy and enlightened conscience holds sway 
within, evil, whether it present itself in the form 
of moral transgression or of outward calamity, is 
only a challenge to more heroic self-command and 
to braver deeds of mental or moral conquest. In 
that conflict between the moral law that presses 
upon the conscience and the pressing, tempting 
thing which that law condemns, virtue is ham- 
mered and shaped into personal character. Out of 
this struggle in some one of its forms, with inward 
temptations or with outward evil conditions and 
wrongs, have appeared the heroes whom we honor, 
the saints whom we reverence and love, the philan- 
thropists and prophets of all ages who still teach 
us to-day by their word and example. Upon man 
himself, indeed, has been placed the dignity and 
responsibility of detecting and overcoming the 
evil that besets his race, and thereby creating 
moral character and establishing society on a 
moral basis. 



256 



WHEAT AND TARES 



Many souls, it is true, in their earthly career 
appear to have succumbed in the struggle to the 
strong power of evil. With many more it has 
apparently been a drawn battle. But, with the 
world at large, and considering the whole history 
of the race, though the expression may seem a 
paradox, it is true that mankind has grown and 
thriven in virtue on the moral evils it has had to 
encounter. Think of the true and holy men, the 
noble women, whose lives are held in grateful 
remembrance for what they became and did, be- 
cause the presence of human woe about them drew 
them out of selfishness into careers of disinterested 
beneficence! This fact of the transformation of 
moral evil into moral benefit, through some reme- 
dial spiritual process of counter-irritancy, may 
not, metaphysically speaking, give us a satisfactory 
reason for the existence of the evil. But, practi- 
cally, it is certainly cause for congratulation, if 
evil must exist, that man has learned to turn it to 
so good account, — 'that, by the very effort to over- 
come its resistance, he has increased his vigor and 
capacity for virtue; and it is a strong argument for 
a divine element in his own nature, as also for a 
divine plan and purpose in the universe, that he 
has so learned. 

And in human experience we have abundant 
illustration of the wisdom of the arrangement by 
which good and evil are allowed to exist together 
instead of being arbitrarily separated, both in re- 
spect to the effect upon the good and the effect 



WHEAT AND TARES 



257 



upon the evil. We naturally shrink from sending 
out the young from the seclusion of well-guarded 
and virtuous homes into places where they must 
come into association with those who have not 
had their moral protection and who have probably 
learned not a little of the roughness and vicious- 
ness of the world. Yet experience does not show 
that those whose entire educational period has been 
kept carefully guarded under pure home influences 
from contact with the possible evil of the world 
make the strongest or most virtuous characters. 
They are quite likely to break down, when the 
emergencies of life throw them upon their own 
resources and the great temptations come in their 
careers. What is needed is that the young should 
take out from their virtuous homes such a loyalty 
to moral principle that they can effectively resist 
the evil influences that may come from any ordi- 
nary contact with rough or vicious associates. The 
home that can send out with its young this stanch 
fidelity to virtue, this inward loyalty to truth, to 
honesty, to purity, to manliness, not only saves 
them "unspotted" from the evil of the world, but 
through them wields a gracious, healthful influence 
that can but do something to redeem the manners 
and the morals of those less fortunately born and 
educated. 

So in the single home. It is certainly fortu- 
nate, when we consider the whole problem of 
human advancement, that the virtues do not all 
appear in one household, the vices in another. 



258 



WHEAT AND TARES 



The strong and the weak, the virtuously disposed 
and the viciously inclined, are born into the same 
family, and are to be reared together. If only a 
wisely directing hand hold the helm, this may be 
no detriment to any, but a great good to all. The 
different individualities, the opposing and even 
clashing temperaments, may help to educate each 
other. The strong may give of their strength to 
the weak, and yet lose none in the giving. The 
virtuous disposition may check the vicious into 
bounds of self-control, and yet train itself to 
needed patience and charity in the process. 

And, even in the marriage relation, it is, on the 
whole, fortunate for human society that the good 
are not always mated together and the bad together, 
but that here, too, the wheat and the tares, if tares 
there must be, are united ; fortunate that love to a 
certain extent is morally blind, so that even saint 
and sinner may be drawn together in the marriage 
bond. There are, indeed, certain grossnesses of 
sin (more on the part of men than women) which 
should forever debar from the sacred relation of 
marriage, because not only the rights of the living, 
but the rights of the unborn, are involved; and 
there are certain gross excesses of evil which, on 
either side, and equally on both sides, may be 
deemed an adequate ground for breaking the rela- 
tion when once formed. But, these exceptions 
aside, Nature knows her aim ; and it is a beneficent 
one, when she makes love overlook faults, and see 
only merit and beauty, and so draws together char- 



WHEAT AND TARES 



259 



acters of very different moral quality and tempera- 
ment. And what is the aim? Not, surely, to 
degrade the higher character; for that, though pos- 
sible, is never necessary. No: it is the lifting up 
of the lower, and the broader education of both, 
and, in the course of coming generations, the neu- 
tralization and elimination of the bad moral qual- 
ity in the human stock. And husband and wife 
are faithless to these high educational obligations 
of the marriage relation when at any time, love 
being off guard, cold reason lifts the veil of illusion 
and bids either see in the other faults incompatible 
with love. Far better, excepting the extreme cases 
I have noted, is the sacred relation observed and 
honored by those who learn to bear and forbear, 
and forgive much evil, and who finally triumph 
over it and win the crown of a love purified as if 
by fire. And such instances are not infrequent, — 
instances where, though the grievance has been 
great, yet by persistent faithfulness to the marriage 
vow, remembering that each took the other in the 
fresh morn of love for better or worse, the saint- 
liness of the one has at last conquered the sin of 
the other, and both have been blessed by the 
fidelity that won the victory. So again in society 
at large. It is wisely ordered by the very condi- 
tions of the existence of human society that the 
different moral classes and grades of mankind can- 
not live wholly apart from and independent of each 
other. They must come into contact, they must 
affect each other for weal or woe, whether they will 



260 



WHEAT AND TARES 



or not. And here the responsibility rests chiefly 
upon the moral and cultivated classes. They are 
the leaders. They cannot live to themselves alone. 
They can only save and strengthen their own 
virtue by helping the ignorant and the vicious. 
Society is, indeed, imperilled from these degraded 
sources. There is moral poison in the contact, 
there is taint in the very atmosphere. But upon 
mental and moral culture is devolved the obliga- 
tion and privilege to disinfect the atmosphere, to 
extract the poison. In thus redeeming others from 
the sloughs of moral degradation, the virtuous and 
educated members of society redeem themselves 
from the dangers of a refined selfishness. There 
are many social questions pressing upon our time 
with alarming urgency. They are not to be 
escaped. To try to get away from them into some 
quiet corner where we may be permitted to pursue 
our own vocations and follow our own tastes in 
peace and prosperity is cowardly. It is also in 
vain. The peace and prosperity cannot be secured; 
at best they will be but temporary, so long as vice 
and ignorance are left rampant to their own devices 
in any grade of society. These foes must be met 
by the culture and virtue of society, wisely and hu- 
manely, but firmly and persistently, — met at the 
ballot box, by the press, in legislation, in busi- 
ness, in the home, the school, the pulpit, the 
street, met everywhere where knowledge can be 
imparted and virtue get a foothold and philan- 
thropy obtain a place for her lever, met not de- 



WHEAT AND TARES 



26l 



spairingly, not half-heartedly, but courageously, 
heroically, with fulness of faith and of hope, else 
will the kingdom of heaven not gain much ascen- 
dency on the earth. 

I have spoken only of the application of the 
theme to our present earthly life; and this cer- 
tainly is for us the most important application. 
Yet, though we may not dogmatize on a question 
where we have no real knowledge, I know not why 
it is not reasonable to suppose that the same 
principles will extend into any life that may be 
in store for humanity in the future. If we are to 
preserve our identity in that coming life for which 
we hope, it would seem that the life must consist 
of essentially the same elements and go on upon 
essentially the same basis as our present life. 
The things that make goodness here must make it 
there. The law of moral fidelity must be as bind- 
ing there as here. Compassion, fraternal sym- 
pathy, loving-kindness, helpful charity, must be 
the same benignant active qualities in the heavenly 
as in the earthly life, only lifted up to purer in- 
tensity and freer scope. So I cannot conceive that 
in that other world evil is to be removed beyond 
the reach of goodness. I believe that the two 
must exist together there as here, so long as one 
needs the help which the other has to give. Why 
should death fix at once an impassable gulf be- 
tween the good and the evil, so that mercy cannot 
pass from the one to the other? That good and 
evil characters are different in nature, and crave 



262 



WHEAT AND TARES 



different satisfactions, and must needs enjoy dif- 
ferent pleasures, is true; but they need not for 
that reason go to different and forever divided 
worlds then more than now. I believe rather that 
the change of relation between the good and the 
evil which death is most likely to effect is the lift- 
ing of them both into more favorable conditions 
for bringing the evil under the redeeming influ- 
ence of the good; that, so far from being implac- 
ably separated from the evil, the good will have 
a better chance then than now to throw around 
them the healing sympathies of their love; and 
that this larger, better opportunity for such saving 
service will be one of the joys of heaven. Why, 
we believe, do we not, that this better opportunity 
and its attendant joy will surely come with the 
improvement of society even here on earth; and 
I can conceive nothing less than this as making the 
felicity of heaven. Surely, for a being with a human 
heart there can be no felicity in any heaven below 
which opens an unapproachable and irredeemable 
gulf of perdition. There as here the good and the 
evil must grow together till the time of harvest. 

The harvest may be long postponed; but even 
man, in his brief years on earth, by his intelli- 
gent skill can make wonderful transformations in 
the plants and flowers which he cultivates, as well 
as in personal character. When the final harvest 
of all comes, may not even the tares be found fer- 
tilized from the pollen of the wheat, and the Infi- 
nite Reaper have only pure grain for his garner? 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS. 



The persons who have moved the world are those 
who have had the courage of their convictions ; 
that is, those who have not only clearly, thor- 
oughly, and firmly believed in certain principles 
and truths, but have also had the disposition, will, 
and vigor to act upon their beliefs and to endeavor 
to get them adopted and acted upon by other 
people. There is a class of persons who, in quiet 
retirement, like to work at problems of thought or 
in scientific research, but whose interest in their 
work seems to be chiefly a theoretical one. They 
manifest little care whether the truths they dis- 
cover are made known to the world and adopted by 
other people or not. They might stand by their 
convictions, if summoned to do so; but they feel 
no call to enter upon a voluntary struggle to propa- 
gate and maintain them. They enjoy the work of 
discovery; but the work of propagandism is not to 
their taste, and they decline it. These persons 
have a use in the world; for the thought-problems 
they solve or the discoveries they make are taken 
up by other people, and are thus thrown into the 
current of the world's activities and made available 
for human benefit. But they do not themselves 
aim at that benefit nor seek actively to promote it. 



264 



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They do not stand with their hands upon the levers 
of the world's movements. Their brain employ- 
ment is for private luxury rather than for public 
profit. 

But, if we look along the line of the world's 
progress, we see that the great leaders in that prog- 
ress have been men of action as well as thought, — 
not, by any means, the men who have been most 
boisterous in action, not, certainly, the men — and 
there are many such — who have rushed noisily 
into action without the thought, not the men who 
have the activity and the dash and the courage, but 
no convictions, but the men who have both the 
convictions and the courage, convictions of truth 
worthy to be contended for, and the courage to 
stand up against all obstacles, to contend for them. 

And these qualities are needed in about equal 
measure to make strong characters. If either be 
greatly deficient, character is necessarily weak and 
ineffective. If both be possessed in very large 
measure, supporting each other, then appear the 
great leaders of human progress. And, where both 
are possessed in exceptionally large measure with 
specially favorable adjustment to each other, there 
are found the few exceptional leaders of humanity, 
— the persons of such rare and conspicuous mark 
on the field of history that not more than a score of 
them can be counted in all the annals of mankind. 
In this small class, "at the top," — where, indeed, 
in every classification of mankind "there is always 
plenty of room," — are the founders of religions, 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



265 



the organizers of states, the thinkers and discov- 
erers who, by the rare profundity and courage of 
their mental action, have revolutionized entire sys- 
tems of thought and practice among their fellow- 
men. 

As a noted example of this class we readily re- 
call Luther, who, though not the most eminent 
scholar and thinker, nor even the noblest character 
of the Protestant Reformation, yet became the 
leader of the Reformation because convictions and 
the courage to stand by them were welded in him 
to the white heat of the most vigorous action. 
Savonarola was a man of the same calibre, and in 
some respects of even finer mould, who a half-cen- 
tury earlier preached a dawning Protestantism in 
Italy, in the face of king and pope, demanding a 
purer faith and cleaner morals, and going finally to 
the stake to expiate the crime of his courage and 
the audacity of his faith. And in the very begin- 
ning of Christianity there was Paul, a Hebrew 
Luther and the real founder of ecclesiastical 
Christianity, — he, too, was a man who had both 
strong convictions and a corresponding strength of 
courage to stand by them. The result was seen in 
the primitive systematizing and propagandism of 
Christianity. But before him, though of very dif- 
ferent temperament, was Jesus, who unconsciously 
laid the basis of Christianity, but built no struct- 
ure thereon. Yet he was a genuine leader in that 
he changed the thoughts and dispositions of the 
people who saw and heard him. Less theological 



266 



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than either Paul or Luther, he towered above them 
both in catholicity of spirit and in purity of moral 
discernment. Savonarola, perhaps, of all the great 
disciples of Christ, came nearest to him in charac- 
ter. But Jesus, notwithstanding his catholicity of 
temper and gentleness of spirit, stood not a whit 
behind the most vigorous leaders that have ever 
appeared in Christendom, in respect to depth of 
convictions and the courage to maintain them. 
The heart side of his character, the tenderness he 
manifested toward the penitent erring, and his ever 
active sympathy for the poor and the distressed 
have sometimes blinded the eyes of his disciples to 
the masculine robustness of his nature. A dispo- 
sition has even been manifest to soften down and 
explain away some of the more vigorous of his de- 
nunciations of the formal sanctity and hypocritical 
pretences of his time as inconsistent with the idea 
of his gentleness and forbearance. But I would 
not take one iota from this side of the story of his 
life, even though the expression of it may possibly 
sometimes shock our ideal of a perfect Christ. 
Possibly our ideal of the perfect Christ lacks this 
very element of vigor which comes into the story 
of the real Jesus. Certainly, it was not merely the 
heart side of Jesus, gentle and sympathetic as that 
was, which made him the dominant character he 
was. Behind his affections and sympathies he had 
deep convictions and the courage to abide by them. 
He drew men and women to him, and helped and 
healed many of their troubles by his mere tender- 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



267 



ness. But this was not the part of his nature that 
specially caused his career to make a new epoch in 
the world's history, and has drawn the admiration 
of after ages. His mission was to bear witness to 
the truth, and for this cause came he into the 
world. He lived in sympathetic and helpful heart- 
relations with the men and women right around 
him; but he lived, also, from and for deep convic- 
tions of mind and soul. For these he wrought and 
suffered and died. Persecution could not deter 
him from proclaiming them, danger could not 
daunt him. Though church and state marshalled 
all their powers against him, his courage did not 
blanch nor falter, until he sealed his testimony 
with his blood. 

Others of the world's great teachers, in Chris- 
tendom and out of Christendom, have had in pre- 
eminent degree this same trait of character. It 
was the courage of his convictions that gave Con- 
fucius power to remodel both the religion and the 
government of large portions of China. It was the 
courage of his convictions whereby Buddha and his 
followers, five hundred years before Christ, swept 
India with a religious reform which, in its relation 
to the more ancient Brahmanism, was not unlike 
the Protestant Reformation in Christendom. It 
was the courage of his convictions which made 
Socrates the father of a new standard of ethics as 
well as of a new philosophy in Greece. Though he 
wrote not a word, but, like Jesus, only talked, yet 
he so impressed his words on the minds of his dis- 



268 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



ciples and the people of his city that the world has 
never lost them, and we have probably to-day al- 
most as true a picture of his thoughts and charac- 
ter as had his contemporaries in Athens. His 
thoughts, too, were printed on the heart of the 
world in his martyr blood; and that is a printer's 
ink that never fades. 

So, too, in the world of science, of discovery 
and invention, of statesmanship, of social and po- 
litical reform, and on the lower field of general- 
ship, the prime leaders are always those who not 
only have strong convictions, but a strong power to 
impress them upon others and to carry them into 
effect. The scientific man who, like Copernicus 
or Darwin, should find himself in possession of 
discoveries that must meet with obloquy and perse- 
cution before the world will accept them, would be 
no true devotee of science, and could be no leader 
in his vocation, unless he is ready to face the fierc- 
est opposition without quailing and still hold by 
his opinions. Science in its progress has always 
had to join swords with theology and the Church; 
and hence its apostles have always had need of the 
martyr's courage, as not infrequently they have 
met the martyr's fate. What a power was Garrison 
in the anti-slavery struggle, peace-man and non- 
resistant though he was, because he possessed not 
only those clear moral convictions that were a 
candle to his own conscience, but had also the 
nerve to hold up those convictions as a burning 
candle before the guilty consciences of Southern 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



269 



slaveholders and their Northern abettors, though 
he had to face mobs and death to do it! Some- 
times the courage is even a more important ele- 
ment than the convictions; that is, it is not 
necessary that the convictions should be very orig- 
inal or striking in order to insure a great and 
beneficent career, though it is necessary that they 
should be clear and strong. We cannot claim for 
Washington that he had a profoundly original 
mind. There were intellects in the Revolutionary 
era superior to his in the origination of ideas, as 
Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton. Yet, take 
him all in all, in generalship and in statesmanship, 
Washington was the master character and leader of 
the American colonies in their perilous passage 
from colonial to national existence. Not brilliant 
in the power of intellectual conception, yet the 
intellectual principles from which he acted were 
clearly grasped by his mind and tenaciously held ; 
but, what was more important, he had that kind of 
courage in carrying his ideas into effect which does 
not consist so much in a dashing assault as in judi- 
cious persistence. There were two generals in our 
late war who illustrated our theme in opposite 
ways. General Sherman was brilliant and inven- 
tive in plan; but, if anything, he was still more 
daring in execution. The danger with him was 
that his courage might hurry him into action with- 
out the support of a well-conceived and well-organ- 
ized plan behind it. General McClellan, on the 
other hand, gave his whole mind to the problem of 



270 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



planning a campaign and organizing his army for 
it. His plans may have been excellent; but, when 
the hour for action came, he seemed to lose faith 
in their success, and delayed for some minor 
amendment of them until the golden moment 
passed when success was possible. He lacked the 
courage even of his military convictions. And his 
own memoirs show that he had a personal ambition 
and conceit that fatally sapped his moral strength. 

And in the smaller and obscurer fields of ser- 
vice, where each of us may be stationed in the 
work and struggle of life, both of these qualities 
are also needed for the successful discharge of the 
task assigned to us. A life without convictions, 
without principles, is like a vessel sailing aim- 
lessly over the seas without a cargo. A character 
with convictions, but without the courage to main- 
tain them, is like a vessel lying at wharf after its 
cargo has been put on board, but having no wind 
nor steam nor other power to take her across the 
seas to her intended port. 

Of course, convictions and principles may be bad 
as well as good; and the man who has the courage 
of thoroughly bad convictions is the scourge of his 
race. The cruel despots in church and state, 
whose personal malignant ambition or hot zeal in 
the service of a false piety has left a trail of blood 
across many a page of human history, have been 
men who had, unhappily, the courage of bad con- 
victions. Better, indeed, would it have been for 
the world if they had had no convictions at all 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



271 



than to have been dominated by such false ones. 
The first duty, therefore, is to store the mind with 
honest and true beliefs, to seek just and beneficent 
principles, to strive to attain correct views of one's 
relation to the world in which he lives. This 
question of what our convictions or principles may 
be is not a matter merely of chance or fate or in- 
heritance: it is a matter of mental and moral cult- 
ure. Convictions may be reformed by broadening 
the mental vision, by enlightening the conscience, 
by increasing the acquisitions of knowledge, by 
clarifying the moral perceptions through more 
active exercise of them, and by cultivating the 
benevolent dispositions of the heart. What are 
called convictions, in the sense in which the word 
is here used, are not intellectual perceptions alone, 
but they are the product of intellectual perceptions 
and moral sentiment, or they are intellectual prin- 
ciples suffused with moral feeling. They are 
warmer and more glowing than are the pure ab- 
stractions of mental truth. One may accept with- 
out question the demonstrated propositions of 
geometry, but it is not these mathematical beliefs 
that are ordinarily called convictions. But, when 
one gets a perception of the relations of justice and 
veracity and brotherhood in which man should live 
with his fellow-man, or when one perceives by 
what subtle and inviolable laws man is related to 
the life of the invisible Power in nature that has 
fathered and mothered him, then he is in the region 
of convictions; and the beliefs that he will attain 



272 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



will depend on the breadth and accuracy of his in- 
tellectual view, and will also be vitalized by moral 
emotion. The conditions, then, for attaining con- 
victions that are true and good may be cultivated. 
Mankind are under obligations to have good con- 
victions instead of bad or indifferent ones. Civil- 
ized man may train himself and may train those 
whose instruction is confided to him to look at their 
relation to other men and to the world in which 
they live with broad and enlightened vision and 
with moral susceptibility. The result of such edu- 
cational training will, in all probability, be mental 
and moral convictions that are altogether worthy of 
being carried into action. 

And then comes the need of the courage. And 
at this point many otherwise quite good people — 
at least, well-intentioned people — practically fail, 
and lead in consequence weak and inefficient lives. 
They have good principles enough, but they are 
weak in execution. Their convictions are all 
right, yet they fail to impress them upon others. 
They see clearly enough, for instance, the course 
which truth and right demand, yet perhaps it is an 
unpopular course: the fashionable or the majority 
do not go that way. And so they are tempted 
either to keep their opinions to themselves and 
remain inactive or else to go with the multitude. 
In either case they lack the courage of their con- 
victions. . Or, perhaps, it is some enterprise of 
philanthropy which they are convinced would be of 
great benefit to the community. They feel moved 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



273 



to enter upon it. They have the time and the 
means to devote to it. But they see, on closer 
acquaintance, that there are many obstacles in the 
way, that hard labor will be required, that mis- 
understandings will have to be met and popular 
odium encountered; and so they withdraw, in cow- 
ardly timidity, from the field, retreat to the enjoy- 
ment of cultured retirement instead of pressing on 
to the higher joy of well-won repose after a con- 
quered wrong. They lack the courage of their 
convictions. Or, perhaps, it is some false and 
injurious social standard of behavior that troubles 
them. Mentally and morally they inwardly protest 
against it. But social conventionalities and tradi- 
tions are strong: to combat them causes fret and 
annoyance, and is liable to put one outside of the 
charmed circle. And so they yield their better 
judgment to the force of custom. Again, they 
lack the courage of their convictions. Or, per- 
haps, — a more critical peril, — reason and con- 
science pronounce clearly for a certain moral 
decision in personal conduct : a certain vice is 
to be abjured, a certain well-understood ruinous 
temptation is to be resisted. The habits and pop- 
ular opinion among companions are on the side of 
the vice. The fear of ridicule, of a laugh, of 
being thought Puritanic and prudish, helps the 
temptation. The hour for action comes, ana there 
is no strength to say No, though reason, con- 
science, heart, all plead for it. The victim lacks 
the courage of his convictions. 



274 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



No great work can be done unless the worker 
throws himself into it with the full ardor of enthu- 
siastic belief. But marvellous achievements have 
been wrought even by one man or one woman, 
single-handed, who was equipped with the enthusi- 
astic courage of a good conviction and with the 
needed practical energy to support it. Such 
workers are wanted to-day. There are neglected 
and ostracized truths that need them. Educational 
reform is waiting for them. The manifold prob- 
lem of the curse of intemperance cries out for their 
solution. Wronged and struggling women plead 
for their aid. Oppressed and discontented labor 
calls for their leadership. The tenement-houses of 
the poor, reeking in filth and misery and vice, pray 
for their knowledge and humanity. Corruption in 
politics demands their most invulnerable con- 
science in the herculean task of cleansing its 
stables. The field is vast, the laborers are few. 
Yet there are large numbers of men and women, 
sitting in their parlors and in their libraries, with 
excellent ideas and sentiments concerning the work 
that needs to be done. But they do not do it; and 
they will probably go down to their graves dissat- 
isfied with their success in life, because they have 
lacked the courage and energy to carry their best 
convictions into execution. 

The opportunities are waiting, not only for the 
clear sight, but the ready hand. Nay, the faith 
that is alive to humanity's wants makes its oppor- 
tunities. It does not wait to find them. It does 



COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS 



275 



not stay at home expecting them to come to it. 
Human beings not only help the world, but perfect 
themselves, by throwing themselves with generous 
enthusiasm into the world's work. "Blessed," 
says Carlyle, "is he who has found his work: let 
him ask no other blessedness." 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE. 



My subject this morning is the heroic element 
in daily life. It is a common impression that 
heroism must have a rare and conspicuous field for 
its display. The heroes, it is thought, belonged 
to the old days of knight-errantry; or they are 
gallant soldiers, or valiant philanthropists, or, at 
least, doers of some work by which their names are 
emblazoned around the world. The General Sheri- 
dans, the John Browns, the John Howards, the 
Garrisons, the Captain John Smiths, the Joan of 
Arcs, the Grace Darlings, the Ida Lewises, — it is 
characters like these that are generally thought of 
as representing the quality of heroism. And 
these, of course, do represent the quality. But 
they are by no means its sole representatives. 
There may be men and women every whit as heroic 
in the quiet walks of daily duty, whose names will 
never be known to history or even beyond the 
boundaries of their own neighborhood. For what 
is the essence of heroism? It is valorous action, 
against great odds, for a noble object. And this is 
a definition that does not cover public and conspic- 
uous deeds alone. The deed may be in secret, it 
may be curtained in domestic privacy, it may per- 
chance be known only to one's own breast; and yet 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



277 



it may have all the elements of true heroism. It 
is the silent heroisms of virtue, never blazoned 
abroad, known perhaps only to the home or the 
neighbor or the secret heart, which keep the moral 
health of mankind. 

According to our definition there are three con- 
ditions essential to heroic action. First, the 
action must be valorous, it must manifest courage. 
You cannot imagine a craven spirit as heroic. 
Valor is the root-meaning of the word from which 
our word "heroism" is derived. At first it meant 
physical valor. But, as human life has developed, 
valor has come to have a mental and moral, as well 
as physical, significance. It means the courage of 
one's convictions, the bravery that can face and do 
the right without fear or favor. And there may be 
mental and moral heroism that will stand up fear- 
lessly to do the true and the right, though there 
may have been little training in acts of physical 
valor. Second, heroic action is conditioned by 
great odds opposed to it. It implies hardship, an- 
tagonism, a struggle, and battle. It means that 
there are strong forces to be wrestled with and con- 
quered. They may be physical forces, or they may 
be mental and moral forces. For Grace Darling 
and Ida Lewis it was the mighty forces of the 
winds and the waves that were to be met, as they 
launched their boats to go out to the rescue of 
shipwrecked fellow-beings. For John Howard it 
was depraved moral forces, so hopeless of cure to 
the thoughtless majority, that he set himself to 



278 HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 

overcome. For Garrison it was the combined 
powers of state, church, and society that he, a 
physical non-resistant, challenged to combat on a 
practical question of justice. The resistance to be 
overcome may thus differ in kind; but all heroic 
deeds imply a hostile power to be fought down, and 
a hostile force, too, that appears to have the advan- 
tage greatly on its side. You would not call any 
action heroic which was done by spontaneous 
desire, with no opposition. Such an action may 
be good, moral; but it is not of the kind called 
heroic. It is a necessary condition of the heroic 
act that it should encounter great obstacles. 
Third, heroic action must have a noble object. 
Here, perhaps, some persons might at first thought 
demur. They might object that very valorous 
deeds have been displayed on the wrong side of 
great public causes, or even for bad personal ends. 
But this objection loses sight of the distinction be- 
tween mere physical valor and the valor that has 
a moral impulsion, — a distinction that has been 
growing clearer to mankind as they have advanced 
in civilization, until now it is precisely this moral 
quality attached to the valorous deed that entitles 
it to the praise of being heroic. Of course, a bad 
cause, as history finally gives judgment, may be 
espoused by good men, acting from conscientious 
devotion to principle. And such men may mani- 
fest heroism because acting for what to them are 
good objects. And so, too, in the strifes of a bad 
cause there may be many incidental occasions for 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



2/9 



genuinely noble deeds of the heroic cast. What is 
meant by the statement that heroic action must 
have a noble object is that it must be a disinter- 
ested, self-forgetful, self-denying action; not a 
deed, however bravely facing danger, undertaken 
for mere personal pleasure or selfish profit or for 
any selfish satisfaction whatever: it cannot be a 
deed of mere passion, or of cruelty, or of brute 
force, or of intellectual cunning, however high 
daring may be displayed in accomplishing the end. 
Heroism, wherever shown, commands admiration, 
it excites our moral homage; and, in order to do 
that, it must have a moral quality, it must be an 
action impelled by an unselfish sympathy or benev- 
olence, or one that the doer believes to be com- 
manded by his convictions of truth and right. In 
a word, it must be action for a noble, and not an 
ignoble, object. 

Our definition of heroism, then, I believe, is 
justified in its three particulars: it is valorous 
action, against great odds, for a noble object. 

Now, is there no opportunity for this kind of 
action in the common walks of life? Is it only the 
soldier, the explorer, the public philanthropist, the 
people who live on the frontiers of civilization and 
in places conspicuously exposed to sudden emer- 
gencies of action, — is it only classes of persons 
such as these that have any occasion to act valor- 
ously against great odds for a noble end? Indeed, 
thus to put the question is almost to answer it. 
When we say "hero," the imagination conjures up 



280 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



some distant, dazzling personage, of whom we have 
read in some history or fiction, — the actor in a tale 
that is seldom repeated, the rare beings who in 
ancient days were even declared after death to be 
demigods and gods for their great deeds. But, 
when we examine the attributes of these beings, 
and say that the hero is one who acts valorously 
against great odds, for a noble object, we have 
brought the quality of heroism home to our own 
doors. If this be heroism, who of us is not called 
to act the part? To whom of us does not come the 
opportunity to act it? and the opportunity, not at 
rare intervals, once or thrice in a life-time, but 
constantly in our daily effort practically to solve 
the problem of life? 

There is no one of us, surely, who does not have, 
or may not have, a noble object for which to live. 
The object may, in fact, be far above our achieve- 
ments. We may be daily denying it in practice. 
We may seldom strive for it as we might. And 
yet we are conscious of a law which imposes upon 
us an obligation to live for noble purposes and pur- 
suits. To every man and woman is given the task 
to form a character, according to the demands of 
truth and rectitude, for the expression of divine 
righteousness in the human world. To do the 
utmost possible toward this end out of the materials 
given is the duty. The materials may not always 
be of the best. Sometimes they may be amended, 
and then that is the first duty. But, when they 
cannot be, when our lot and circumstances and rela- 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



28l 



tions in life are fixed for us, then the duty, keeping 
ever the rules of rectitude and truth as guides, is to 
mould character to the highest form possible from 
the given conditions. This law never relaxes the 
tension of its obligation upon us for a single mo- 
ment. We are bound to live for the right and the 
true. Intuition, experience, the motive of highest 
usefulness, the desire for the greatest happiness, 
the instinct of moral sympathy, all enforce upon us 
the sanctity of this obligation. It is an obligation 
that we cannot violate with impunity. It is an 
obligation that we cannot violate and feel entirely 
at ease, unless we have suffered our moral percep- 
tions to have become dulled by abuse. There is 
before us, therefore, the highest and noblest of all 
objects, — the formation of true, upright, beneficent 
character, an object that is constant, that is not for 
rare days and infrequent opportunities, but for all 
days; and there is no act that we do that does not 
have some bearing upon this object either as help- 
ing or hindering its achievement. None of us, 
then, can say that we have no opportunity for at 
least this one among the essential conditions of 
heroism, — a noble object. 

But do we find it easy to keep this object steadily 
in view, and to keep our acts steadily bent to the 
task of achieving it? By no means, we answer. 
We imagine it might be much easier if the circum- 
stances were different ; and we sometimes picture 
to ourselves how much more truly we might live, 
how much better might be our characters and more 



282 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



satisfactory our achievements, if we had only been 
thrown amidst other circumstances, if we could 
change places with some of our neighbors, if we 
had lived in some more favorable locality, if we 
had had more money, or perhaps less, or if a 
different kind of fortune had attended us through 
the years. But all these imaginings are but ex- 
cuses for present delinquencies. If we could only 
get rid of the special difficulties of our lot, of the 
common-place duties that so absorb our faculties 
and time, of the drudgeries to which we are com- 
pelled, but which so stand in the way of our 
achieving those things that we most want to do, we 
profess to believe that we should be much better 
men and women, that then we should have more 
energy and enthusiasm and opportunity for the cult- 
ure and pursuit of those higher objects which we 
recognize as demanding our allegiance, that then 
we should be able to present a higher type of char- 
acter and conduct. But here, then, in these antag- 
onistic conditions and circumstances of which we 
complain, are the very obstacles and hardships for 
calling forth that heroic quality of character which 
appears to us so admirable. Did our lot in life 
make it entirely easy to attain the lofty type of 
character which our consciences most approve, 
there would be, as we have seen, no room for hero- 
ism in the pursuit. By the resistance to be over- 
come is that quality measured. Heroism is gauged 
not by favoring circumstances, not by the wheel of 
fortune bringing an aspirant's wishes to the top, 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



283 



but by that moral pluck and determination and 
will-power which push their way against unfavoring 
circumstances and compel success from adverse 
fortune itself. The success, be it remembered, of 
which we now speak, is the noble life, the true 
character, the honorable moral career. It may have 
or it may not have outward wealth. It may attain 
or it may not attain the external position and con- 
ditions that once seemed desirable. But the very 
hardness of an unfavorable lot has been met by 
moral pluck and vigorous determination in such a 
way as to develop the inner fibre of a strong moral 
character, and this is human life's highest success. 
Heroism looks for no other. And here, in the 
conditions of the common lot, the drudging daily 
labors that have so little of romance, the unpal- 
atable ever-recurring duties, the plodding necessi- 
ties that appear to allow so little room for the 
culture that is craved, the homely struggles with 
common, unexciting temptations, which have no 
epic flow and never rise to the interest of a tragic 
crisis, — here is a field where heroism may find 
ample opportunity to test its mettle. We have our 
moral ideals of life. They are of celestial heights 
of attainment. But here are the petty conditions 
of the day, of the hour, the selfish anxieties and 
passions, the home care and trial, the pressing 
earthy work, the distracting errands hither and 
thither, which drag upon our feet and threaten to 
prevent our ever reaching that goal of our hopes. 
The odds are perilously against us unless the 



284 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



heroic quality of character come to the rescue; and 
that the odds are against us is an appeal for aid 
which heroism by its very nature, if it be present, 
must recognize. 

We find, then, in the common paths of daily life 
two of the essential conditions of heroic action, — a 
noble object of pursuit and obstacles in the way 
which throw the odds greatly against the chance of 
attainment. Why, then, do we not oftener meet 
this quality of heroism in the common paths of 
life? It is true we often do meet it there; and 
still oftener perhaps we know that it exists there* 
although it may be concealed from all eyes until 
we see it in its results. But why do we not very 
generally see it? Why do we not meet it every- 
where where we meet these two of its essential 
conditions? The reason must be because the third 
condition is wanting. Heroism we defined as val- 
orous action, against great odds, for a noble object. 
We have found the common paths of daily life 
affording ample opportunity for the noble object, 
and also, in the obstacles to that object, supply- 
ing the resistances which challenge heroism to its 
tasks. If, therefore, the heroism does not appear, 
it must be because the valor is not there to respond 
to the challenge. There is a deficiency of moral 
courage, a lack of brave, robust vigor in attacking 
the evils that beset character, a too willowy weak- 
ness in bending before them, a want of moral 
muscle to resist and conquer them. And this, our 
logical conclusion, would doubtless correspond 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 285 

with the practical diagnosis of the trouble in such 
cases. We should discover a deficiency of that 
healthy moral sentiment which has such an instinc- 
tive aversion to evil that it is inwardly compelled 
to assail and destroy it. This sentiment being- 
defective and diseased, moral atrophy and paralysis 
ensue. A character of flabby moral fibre cannot be 
heroic. A vigorous moral sympathy, pushing by 
inherent compulsion to action against all distress 
and wrong, is the first condition of heroism. That 
supplies the valor, without which all the opportu- 
nities for heroic deeds, whether in common life or 
in extraordinary emergencies, would be offered in 
vain. But, having the valor, then there is no need 
to go beyond the limits of that daily common life 
in which we are all sharers to find a field for the 
truest heroism. 

Let us now bring these generalities down to 
some special application. What is it that we indi- 
vidually first and most need to do, beginning now 
just where we are, in solving the problem of life? 
It is not to dream or even to inquire how we might 
act, were we differently situated; but it is to make 
a vital junction here and now between the actual 
conditions given to our hands and that better, 
higher life we hope to attain. And probably most 
of us will think at once of certain temptations 
which severally beset us, and which we know must 
be resisted and overcome; of certain evil habits 
which stand in the way of our progress, and which 
we know must be put off before that progress can 



286 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



be assured; of a certain routine of unprofitable 
activity or of sloth that is to be exchanged for use- 
ful service; of certain trials and sufferings that may 
be borne with more equanimity and courage; of 
certain obstacles that stand in the way of our better 
ideals. Whatever may be the nature of these 
moral reforms which we see to be needed in our 
lives, there is no other way to accomplish the work 
but by definitely and faithfully taking it in hand, 
piece by piece and day by day, keeping to the task 
till it is finished. It is vain to expect that a re- 
form will come by mere general regrets over pres- 
ent failures and a general wish and hope for better 
things; and it is perilous to wait for a change of 
circumstances to effect the desired result. The 
temptations, the bad habits, the trying circum- 
stances, are to be met each on its own field. If it 
is a too easily angered temper, if it is a slander- 
ous or untruthful tongue, if it is an indolent, dila- 
tory disposition, if it is a complaining spirit, if it 
is a rebellious physical appetite, if it is moroseness 
or avarice or covetousness or unjust greed, if it is 
persistent neglect of well-recognized duties, if it 
is inclination to selfish ease or pleasure, each one 
of these faults calls for a special vigilance and 
effort to overcome it. Having learned what are 
the faults which we need each in our own case to 
conquer, — and those of us who have come to years 
of discretion know pretty well what is the moral 
matter with us, — there is no longer time nor occa- 
sion for parleying with our errors or excusing 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



287 



them; but the demand is for action. Each morn- 
ing should witness a resolute purpose to do battle 
against these foes of our moral nature, these ob- 
stacles which stand in the way of that ideal of 
character which has our highest homage; and every 
evening should have, if possible, the satisfaction of 
noting some progress achieved. Nowhere in the 
whole wide range of human activity is there more 
call for the heroic spirit and the heroic deed than 
in this struggle of our moral natures to put down 
their own evil tendencies, and to shape character 
by the highest patterns of rectitude, purity, truth- 
fulness, and kindness. Here are the fields, and 
they are open to us all, where the highest prizes of 
heroism may be won. Here is the noble object, — 
the very noblest to which we can apply our powers ; 
here the obstacles, which valiant souls pride them- 
selves on conquering; here the valor, as great as 
that which fights in armies a nation's battles for 
the right, — nay, the need often is for greater, since 
that contends amidst the plaudits of an on-look- 
ing world, while this may have to struggle all in 
secret, with no applause save that responsive echo 
in one's own breast which is God's whisper of 
satisfaction. 

And, if we are complaining that our lives are 
monotonous, that they are void of incident and in- 
terest, day following day on one arid level, then I 
know not how we could better break the monotony 
and give ourselves the high delight of a fruitful 
activity than by engaging, one by one, the faults 



288 



HEROISMS IN DAILY LIFE 



and vices and evil habits which now may enslave 
us, throwing off their domination, and making our- 
selves their master, making the soul the master of 
the flesh and of circumstance. It is these contests 
and conquests that make the interest of the biog- 
raphies and the stories which we read; and we 
have, therefore, the materials of a real romance in 
our hands every day. What prouder thought can I 
have than to know that this day, in this very part 
of life's drama I am acting, the good within 
me has got the better of the evil ? To have made 
that conquest is the hero's title to the proudest 
claim on his escutcheon. Changing a single word 
in Tennyson's lines, they strike the key-note of 
this moral battle which we wage for high ideals 
against our own lower inclinations and habits: — 

" Ah, my God, 
What might I not have made of thy fair world, 
Had I but loved thy highest [pleasures] here? 
It was my duty to have loved the highest : 
It surely was my profit had I known : 
It would have been my pleasure had I seen. 
We needs must love the highest when we see it." 

And in the battle of life, friends, we do see this 
Highest Law, which asks for our fealty. 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH. 



The new President of Columbia College, in his 
inaugural address a few days ago, speaking of the 
beneficence of such a seat of learning in the midst 
of the metropolitan whirl of business activities in 
the city of New York, said: "The work of the col- 
lege would be valueless to-morrow if even the 
wealth of New York could bribe her instructors to 
teach as true what they know to be false. Truth- 
fulness is the one essential fundamental quality of 
a teacher. Without it he may not be a teacher. 
Yet it is not the only quality. The teacher, like 
the scholar, must himself be teachable. An ever- 
heightening sky for human thought, an ever-widen- 
ing horizon for human knowledge, an absolute 
truthfulness in the expression of the light within, 
— these are the distinguishing marks of a great 
university." 

If President Low had been describing the ob- 
jects of a religious society, he could hardly have 
chosen more fitting words. Add to his description 
the inculcation of the sacredness of duty, — which 
may yet be implied in his large and noble general- 
ization, — and we could not ask for better terms in 
which to express the chief uses of a church in the 
midst of the prevalent passions and ambitions that 
are such dominant, every-day factors in the affairs 



29O THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

of mankind. At least, the words suggest that 
learning and religion are natural coworkers for 
the highest welfare of humanity. Learning, thus 
nobly defined, and religion, rationally interpreted, 
come into the same road and lead finally toward 
the same end, — the supreme devotion of man to 
truth, truth in its largest, highest, and ever deep- 
ening and increasing sense. If absolute truthful- 
ness in the expression, through word and conduct, 
of the light within, be the object of learning, it is 
no less the object of religion. Truth itself, since 
it is but the reality of things to which man stands 
in constant, vital relationship, should have that 
saving efficacy and power which religion has always 
promised as its gift to man. Hence my subject 
this morning. "The Saving Power of Truth." 

But a curious anomaly of human history presents 
itself to us at the outset. The moral and religious 
leaders of all nations have always asserted that 
truth is all-powerful, that it is the essence of All- 
mighty Being, that it will make men free, and 
guide them safely; and the mental and moral sense 
of mankind in general has given assent to these 
propositions. Yet everywhere, from the times im- 
memorial when Adam of the ancient legend at- 
tempted concealment in the Garden of Eden, and 
from the later times when Peter denied and Judas 
betrayed their Master, men have tried to live by a 
falsehood. The attempt has always in the end 
proved to be vain; yet the lesson of its uselessness 
has been a hard one to learn, and has not yet been 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 291 

mastered. Even in the old legend of Genesis, the 
penetrative eye of Jehovah detected the hiding- 
place of the disobedient pair and brought them to 
the light. Peter's falsehood only confounded him 
with tears of shame; and the lie of Judas was too 
great for mortal man to bear, and, like the fraud of 
many a man since, confessed itself in the coward's 
act of suicide. Still, everywhere, the old attempt 
goes on as if some time or other it could succeed. 
Still people are afraid or ashamed of the naked 
simplicity of truth if it threatens to lead them to 
espouse an unpopular cause; and they try to cover 
themselves with some petty contrivance of deceit 
for eluding their own consciences. Still, there are 
people who betray truth with a kiss, and sell her 
for gold. Still there are the cowardly whose 
minds see the truth, but whose hearts are too timid 
to follow when danger to position or popularity 
appears. Thus the effort continues to live by a 
lie. The effort is of manifold grades and kinds, 
from the minor deceits of trade and social life, 
which try to protect themselves under the guise of 
special moral codes for business and society, to the 
deeds of men who rob a bank of its securities, and 
then profess amazement that the world does not 
recognize their operations as in accordance with 
approved methods of Wall Street finance. It ap- 
pears again in the sharp manoeuvring of partisan 
politicians to outwit each other in parliamentary 
law and legislation and in election campaigns. It 
rises in religious robes in the Assembly of Presby- 



292 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

terians to plead that the creed and the catechism 
remain unrevised, because the very words have be- 
come reverend and sacred with age, and can now be 
repeated with new meanings and mental reserva- 
tions by those who cannot accept them in their 
original significance. In the Episcopal General 
Convention, for similar reasons, it deprecates, 
against many conscience appeals, a revision of the 
Prayer Book, which has guided the worship of so 
many generations. It lobbies in the National 
Unitarian Conference, of which a large body of the 
membership now says, in respect to the theological 
phrases of its constitution: "They don't mean any- 
thing to us : they are a dead letter. But to a few 
among us they mean something, and to the world 
outside they seem to mean a good deal. So don't 
touch them, but, in the interests of harmony and 
quiet and peace, let them stand there, though on 
the frontals of our temple; we don't or need not see 
them as we go under." And if, among men who 
have risen to such conspicuous positions in the 
world as religious and political leaders, there occur 
these evidences of carelessness, timidity, and be- 
trayal in the presence of truth's commands, is it 
any wonder that young people, young men espe- 
cially, should deem it easier and safer to evade the 
law of moral truth as it affects personal character, 
and, when tempted into crooked paths for sudden 
riches or into courses of pleasurable and vicious 
self-indulgence, should think it may be possible 
somehow successfully to escape the retribution? 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 



293 



But perhaps I shall be asked, How, among the 
many statements and standards of truth that are 
offered, are we to know what to accept as the gen- 
uine truth which saves? Let us, then, divest our- 
selves at once of the ecclesiastical and theological 
definitions of truth which the various sects have set 
forth. Let us not suppose the saving truth to be 
all contained in the limits of any creed or between 
the covers of any book. Let us not presume it to 
be identical with any particular scheme of belief 
which any church of mankind, however venerable 
or learned, has taught. These, at best, are but 
partial and temporary expressions, finite apprehen- 
sions and interpretations, of that which in its nat- 
ure is universal and absolute. The truth we want, 
the truth which is to be sought through "an ever- 
heightening sky and an ever-widening horizon," is 
the absolute and total Reality of things in the uni- 
verse, whether pertaining to the earth or the 
heavens, or to matter or thought or spirit, or to any 
other possibilities of life and existence. Truth, in 
this absolute sense, is synonymous with Infinite and 
Eternal Being. To use the words of an old writer, 
it is "the breath of the power of God; . . . and, 
being but one, she can do all things, . . . and in 
all ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them 
friends of God and prophets." 

To illustrate the beneficent power of truth in 
this large universal sense, we may begin on the 
lowest plane of truth; that is, with that kind of 
material and practical knowledge which is gained 



294 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

through observation of the facts and laws of nature. 
What independence and power the human race has 
attained simply through increasing knowledge of 
those natural forces and laws which have been ap- 
plied to the arts of life! The difference between 
the savage man and the brute animal is scarcely 
greater than the difference between the most civil- 
ized nation of the earth to-day and the nation that 
stood highest in civilization a thousand years ago. 
Within that time the methods of domestic, indus- 
trial, and social life have been revolutionized and 
built up anew by the practical application of that 
kind of knowledge which the physical sciences 
have brought. In the acquisition of this sort of 
truth we may largely trace the history of modern 
civilization. To civilize a people, in the modern 
sense, is to educate them to the use of the forces 
and laws of the natural world, to teach them how 
to build dwellings so as at the same time to shelter 
from the cold and the storm and to let in the air 
and the light; how to get warmth in winter from 
fire, instead of burrowing in the ground like the 
brute to find it ; how to tame wild beasts from sav- 
age ferocity into submissive helpers; how to make 
the cold zones inhabitable by converting natural 
growths from plants and animals into clothing; 
how to cultivate the earth and to extract the riches 
of its soil and its mines; how to transform its 
products into wholesome food; how to convert 
wood and metals into countless utensils and tools 
for better utilizing and multiplying the power of 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 295 

human hands; how to use nature's powers so as to 
enable one man to do the work of a thousand; and, 
finally, how through the printing-press, to preserve 
all this knowledge and the thoughts of the wisest 
men so that the child thereafter may know them 
without the tedious experience of discovery, and 
they may never again be lost out of the world. 

Who can estimate the power which this knowl- 
edge of nature has given, and will yet give, to 
mankind? And, literally, it has been a saving, 
uplifting, educating power. That one fact — the 
discovery of fire — lifted man from the grovelling 
condition of the brute into the erect posture of the 
human being. Before he burrowed: afterward he 
built. Before he crouched: afterward he stood. 
Before he was of the earth, confined by its tether: 
afterward he walked earth's surface free, and all 
zones and climates became accessible to him. The 
savage is the slave of Nature: he lives in subjec- 
tion to her conditions and in terror of her forces. 
To the civilized man Nature is the willing servant: 
he has learned her secrets and mastered her forces. 
In defiance of ancient Scripture, he has "measured 
the breadth of the earth," "entered into the 
springs of the sea," and "into the treasures of the 
snow." He has dared even to lift his head toward 
the heavens to compute the paths and the times 
of the stars. The sea is his highway. Fire and 
water he has yoked together for his strongest steed. 
He has hooped the earth with his iron roads, con- 
verted miles of space into moments of time, and 



296 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

chained the lightnings so that they say to him, 
"Here we are," and obediently do his errands. 

Thus it is that the knowledge of truth as it is in 
nature has lifted men out of the limiting and de- 
grading conditions of savage life, made them mas- 
ters of natural forces, and given them dominion 
over the earth, with a measure of the freedom and 
power which we conceive to be the attributes of In- 
finite Being. It has been estimated that, through 
the application of nature's help in the various 
mechanical arts, the effective power of every per- 
son's hands in the State of Massachusetts has been 
increased more than a thousand-fold, so that even 
a child of ten years could now do work that would 
require, if not thus aided, the strength of a thou- 
sand able-bodied men. 

But all this is only one kind of truth and one 
form of its application, and these the lowest. 
This domain of physical truth, vast and momen- 
tous as it is, needs to be included in and balanced 
by that larger realm of truth which is both intel- 
lectual and moral. It needs this balance and en- 
largement of relationship in order to insure its full 
and permanent beneficence for man. Mere knowl- 
edge alone is power, but it is not always nor neces- 
sarily beneficent power. The human mind may be 
educated to great ingenuity and skill in certain 
directions, and yet the intellectual life as a whole 
remain narrow, shallow, and unfruitful, and the 
moral nature lie dormant, or even be perverted and 
enslaved to evil. What, indeed, is most of all 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 297 

wanted, in order to make available for the highest 
uses that human power which results from conquest 
of the truths of nature, is secure establishment in 
some truth that is deeper and higher. No ad- 
vancement in the physical sciences and arts, no 
accumulation of material power and riches, can 
promote man's highest good without a correspond- 
ing increase of moral perception and accumulation 
of moral power. All material civilization, how- 
ever splendid, is but a gaudy, empty show if it 
does not ascend to moral and spiritual ends. 
Boast of our modern civilization as we will, and, 
though we claim that it is bulwarked against peril 
by the printing-press and the public school, yet we 
can never be sure that it will not lapse into an- 
other dark era of barbarism, or a social condition 
of things as bad as that, unless it be penetrated 
through and through with moral ideas and conse- 
crated by an ideal, moral enthusiasm. This won- 
derful progress of mankind through the discovery 
and application of the truths of material nature 
must be guided by the constant and higher applica- 
tion of the truths of the spirit. Popular liberty 
will find no stable throne nor lasting crown until 
the realm of material forces is subordinated to the 
power of ethical laws. 

And it must be admitted that there is much in 
our modern civilization that is unsatisfactory and 
unsound. Its dominant activities spring from and 
appeal to motives that are selfish and sordid. 
While it has lifted us out of the depths of tradi- 



298 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

tional ignorance and gross degradation, it has nour- 
ished vices peculiar to itself. It has fostered an 
unwholesome love of gain, irrespective of the 
rights of fellow-men or the calls of human sym- 
pathy. It has whetted certain appetites of the 
flesh to a keener edge. The Chinese government 
has in vain besought Great Britain to keep the 
deadly opium drug of her civilization at home. 
Missionaries in the new Congo State in Africa, 
which was to civilize the negroes through com- 
merce, find their work paralyzed because of the 
rum flowing in there from civilized — aye, from 
Christian — England, Holland, and our own Bos- 
ton. If our civilization has brought us immense 
power and freedom over nature, it has also brought 
a new bondage. Millions are enslaved to its mad 
lust of gain. The quiet, domestic virtues go down 
before the rushing train of material enterprise. 
Homely honesty is often eclipsed by the blinding 
dust and smoke. Justice and humanity may get 
on board, if they can ; but the train bound express 
for the terminus Plutocracy cannot stop for them. 
Commerce rules, the manufacturing interest rules, 
gold rules. Trade sets up a moral standard of its 
own quite different from the Golden Rule of Jesus 
and Zoroaster and Confucius. This great country 
of ours tried to live for nearly a century with a 
dreadful lie in its bosom, — proclaiming equal 
rights for all men, but legalizing the enslavement 
of black men because cotton was king. "The 
higher law," — that was all transcendental talk, 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 299 

and touched not the earth. For practical life there 
was no higher law than expediency. 

This, I believe, is no exaggeration of what mod- 
ern civilization has been on its evil side. I ac- 
knowledge that it has another side, and have tried 
to sketch it. I recognize the vast power the 
human race has acquired through use of the forces 
of nature, and the magnificent foundation thus laid 
for future achievements. But, in order that these 
achievements may be secured and the evils of our 
present one-sided civilization neutralized, there 
should be the same fearless pursuit in the discov- 
ery and establishing of intellectual and moral 
truth. We are now applying to life, for the most 
part, only one fragmentary part of truth. We 
want the whole truth, full rounded in all its con- 
stituent elements, to make individual life worth 
the living, and worthily to complete the unfolding 
drama of human history. Our material civiliza- 
tion is only a basis on which mind and heart and 
soul are to rear their structures. What high art 
should come, what literature, what poetry, what phi- 
losophies and humanities, what equity of law 
and administration, what social fraternity, what 
strength and graces of personal character should 
appear, as the legitimate sequence of this conquest 
of nature by the powers of mind! The true, the 
just, the beautiful, — not till these shall rule in 
private, in public, and in national life, will our 
present era of material civilization be worthily 
crowned. 



300 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

But there are many who aver that these higher 
truths of the human soul are impracticable; that 
they must remain as ideals in the sky, while prac- 
tice must come down to a lower level, more nearly 
in accordance with the methods in vogue around 
us. Here is one of the strangest delusions that 
the world has known, yet it is a delusion that has 
assiduously been kept up from age to age, — that 
truth is not so practicable as error; that a half- 
truth is stronger than the whole truth ; that wrong 
and falsehood may be perfectly practicable, but 
their opposing truth, though clearly known, is im- 
practicable. If this were so, it would be the 
strongest argument that could be offered against 
there being any valid basis of truth or any moral 
purpose in the universe. The delusion is born of 
a scepticism that is thoroughly atheistic. Believe 
me, the highest moral truth known to man is prac- 
ticable. If it is not practised, the fault is in 
human character, and does not spring from any 
cause in the nature of things. And what better 
evidence can be had that any truth, whether of 
religion or of science or of ethics, is meant for 
human use than that it has come within the scope 
of human intelligence? Or what better intimation 
of the time it should be put to use than the date of 
its discovery? That, at least, is the time when all 
who understand and acknowledge it should begin 
eagerly to labor for its supremacy, content no 
longer that any error or half-truth should occupy 
its place. And yet people parley, defer, compro- 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 



301 



mise, evade. They say, in effect: "Excuse us, O 
Lord, but this truth of thine comes altogether too 
soon for safety. Next year, or next century, the 
world may be ready for it. But now it is utterly 
impossible to get it established. To attempt to 
disseminate it will produce only a vain agitation 
and bitterness. Pray take it back to thyself again. 
Keep it hidden till a more auspicious season, and 
leave us for the present harmonious and happy in 
our error." But to such timid parleying the an- 
swer always comes back from the Source of truth, 
"Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of 
salvation." And, if we try to pass this reply un- 
heeded and still put aside the truth that is knock- 
ing at our doors for admission, then, sooner or 
later, the inevitable stern voice of retribution will 
ring through the chambers of conscience, proclaim- 
ing "the day of vengeance of our God." That an- 
cient Scripture still has a meaning for mankind. 
It means the dread retribution that by natural law 
follows the fracture of righteousness. Truth can- 
not be safely tampered with nor violated. This is 
the lesson of all history, the lesson of individual 
life and of every nation's annals. 

Nothing can be more fallacious than the idea 
that individual character ever derives any greater 
efficiency from lowering the standard of truth or 
virtue to make them more practicable, or that any 
half-way rule of honesty will work better than the 
perfect rule. You will see men enough, it is 
true, — there are, alas! too many of them, — who 



302 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

have attained a certain outward success, a certain 
measure of influence and power perhaps, through 
methods of concealment and trickery. We may 
sometimes see fortunes accumulated through extor- 
tionate and fraudulent practices in trade; vul- 
gar demagogism, cunning, and hypocrisy mount- 
ing to places of high trust and authority in the 
community; selfish ambition - riding rough-shod 
over the unostentatious merits of solid wisdom 
and moral sincerity. All this we see; and a hasty 
inference might be that, in this world, hypocrisy 
succeeds and truthfulness fails, that fraud is re- 
warded and honesty punished quite as generally as 
the reverse. But it would most certainly be a 
hasty inference. Look through a lifetime, look 
at people in the mass and in the long run, and the 
rule is that men find that level to which their char- 
acters respectively fit them, and stand in the com- 
munity for what they really are. There are some 
exceptions to this rule; but they are exceptions, 
and do not make the standard. They are enough 
to suggest that this life may not complete the 
moral course, that there is somewhere a beyond for 
rectifying the judgments of the earthly life. Yet 
even here, in general, it is reality, genuine worth, 
that reaches the highest places of respect and 
achieves the truest success. You may say that 
here is a man who lives respected in the commu- 
nity, though on ill-gotten gains. But he does not 
have your respect. He does not have the respect 
of any one in the community who knows with you 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 



303 



of his dishonest ways. It is to be put to the credit 
of human nature that no compromise of personal 
integrity, no evasion of personal truthfulness, ever 
wins regard from others or retains power over them. 
Sooner or later the fraudulent disguises are ex- 
posed. The flimsy veil of outward respectability 
is blown away, and power vanishes with it. It is 
only truth, reality, that ultimately commands. 

And what is true of individual character is true, 
also, of communities, of nations. No community 
nor nation was ever made strong by a compro- 
mise of justice. Personal and sectional interests, 
merely outward and material matters, may be com- 
promised for the general welfare; but the right and 
the true never. The majority may not support nor 
even comprehend the highest political truth. Let 
them, then, put into act the ideas that belong to 
their level and keep the responsibility therefor; 
but let not those who do see the truth that is 
needed yield one jot or tittle of it because it cannot 
be enacted to-day. If they cannot be legislators, 
let them be prophets. Stronger was Jesus hanging 
upon the cross than Pilate, at the command of the 
political voices of the day, signing his death-war- 
rant. Stronger is the man or the party that stands 
for the truth, though in a minority and having no 
official power, than the man or the party that may 
possess all the insignia and patronage of office, 
but denying the truth. Better wait a whole century 
than help to enact a lie or even a half-truth, if the 
half-truth can only be obtained by a compromise 



304 THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 

against the other half. The proverb sometimes 
preached in such cases, that a half-loaf is better 
than no bread, does not apply to any question 
where the point yielded is a point of morals. For 
then the half loaf is not bread, but a stone; not 
food, but poison. Every national compromise of 
justice legalizing an injustice brings the inevitable 
retribution of corruption and disease in the body 
politic, which only the bitter discipline of suffer- 
ing can expiate and cure. 

But, having spoken with somewhat of severity of 
certain tendencies of the age, I forbear to close 
without a word of encouragement and hope. For 
back of all and through all there is one "stream of 
tendency," which is never to be forgotten, and 
which is always the world's strength and the sure 
hope of mankind. It is the pressure, from the 
hidden Source of all sources, Cause of all causes, 
of the Absolute Truth itself toward the realization 
of its own ideals in human character and society. 
Steadily, firmly, under this Divine pressure there 
come solid gains for man. The millennium is 
still far away. The Elysian fields are not yet in 
sight. But, even in our own time, the burdens have 
been somewhat lifted from overburdened shoulders. 
The chains of oppression have been loosened, and 
some of them broken forever. Miseries have been 
somewhat assuaged. Hope and honorable aspira- 
tion have been stirred in hearts that never knew 
them before. Knowledge, culture, and refinement 
have increased. Justice and good will and brother- 



THE SAVING POWER OF TRUTH 



305 



hood are rising to higher thrones in the sover- 
eignty of nations. Thus slowly, but surely, do 
the great moral ideas and purposes, which crown 
the universe with a fitting noble aim, work their 
way into the heart and life of humanity. The 
Power in the world that makes for truth and right- 
eousness is patient, but it wins at last. All history 
substantiates the truth that there is a Power in the 
world, not simply above it or outside of it, but in 
it , that is reconciling the world unto itself, bring- 
ing it into harmony with its own ideal aims, shap- 
ing and fashioning it to the service of Truth, Good- 
ness, and Beauty. Let us call that Power our God, 
God with us, — God working in man, and through 
him, and for him. 

" One God, one law, one element, 

And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT. 



" Make full proof of thy ministry." — 2 Tim. iv. 5. 

The subject intended for to-day's discourse, my 
friends, must be put aside. I can speak to you only 
of what is uppermost in my thoughts, especially as, 
according to our annual custom, this is the last 
opportunity I shall have to address you for several 
weeks. You must allow me, too, to speak to you 
familiarly, very much as I would talk to you 
individually in my study. I have no carefully 
arranged discourse, neither the time nor my tastes 
have permitted it. But the thoughts that are pass- 
ing through my mind, and in just the shape they 
pass, since they may ultimately concern you in the 
result to which they may lead, I have felt that you 
have a right to know. 

From the beginning of this rebellion, which for 
more than two years has shaken and devastated our 
land, I have been preaching to you, friends, of na- 
tional themes, with greater frequency than some of 
you, perhaps, have thought expedient, and not 
always what all of you would have best liked to 
hear, yet always, both as to time and matter, 
according to my own solemn convictions of duty; 
and from the bottom of my heart I most devoutly 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 307 

thank you to-day for the very general welcome you 
have given to these efforts, and still more, if possi- 
ble, for the generous liberty you have accorded me 
to speak my thought, even though you might not 
always agree with it when spoken. As I now look 
back upon my utterances here on these themes, I 
have no misgivings, save that I have done so little, 
and done so poorly. I have tried, so far as possi- 
ble in the small range of my ability, to bring the 
support of this pulpit to the cause of our country. 
I have endeavored so to speak as to excite among 
you and in this community a patriotic sentiment 
that would prepare our homes for sacrifices, that 
would help fill our armies in the field, that would 
inspire men and women with a desire in some way 
to serve their country, and that would aid in bring- 
ing the moral and religious strength of the whole 
community to the side of the national government 
in this struggle. I would fain have filled the 
breast of every man with a wish to give himself to 
this holy cause; and I have sought so to speak as 
to induce the young and healthy and capacitated, 
not only to have the wish, but honorably to gratify 
it by going to the field. I have spoken of the 
sublimity of self-sacrifice, of the nobleness of 
doing and dying for one's country, of the immortal 
glory which our hero-soldiers, living or dead, are 
achieving for themselves and for the nation which 
they redeem. I have thus tried to make it easier 
for parents to give up their sons, wives their hus- 
bands, sisters their brothers, and all of us those 



3o8 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



whom we may love better than ourselves; and I 
have striven to keep up among us at home a spirit 
and a habit of charity that should help relieve the 
sufferings of our soldiers in the hospital, or add to 
their strength and comfort in the camp and on the 
field. I have endeavored, moreover, to excite not 
merely a patriotic sentiment, but a patriotic senti- 
ment founded on a sense of justice and a reverent 
regard for human rights. Never for a moment 
have I lost sight of the fact that, to make the cause 
of the nation a holy cause, and one which can prop- 
erly receive the support of any Christian pulpit, it 
must be the cause of truth, of liberty, of humanity. 
I have sought, therefore, to go below the fact of 
civil war to its causes : I have endeavored to keep 
the thought clear that, by this rebellion, truth and 
liberty and humanity were assailed, — the very 
fundamental principles of our government, — and 
that it is only as we go to the defence of these, and 
make them victorious throughout the land, that any 
real triumph or lasting peace can be secured for 
our country. 

I speak not of what I have done, — oh, how little 
is that ! — but of what I have endeavored to do. 
And even that is not much, nothing exceptional. 
It is only what almost every pulpit in the loyal 
States has been doing, and what hundreds of men 
in my place would have done as well or better; and 
I have spoken of my endeavors now, not for any 
merit there is in them, but simply for their bearing 
on what follows. I have merely uttered here from 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 309 

time to time what was in my heart, and so uttered 
it, I trust, that the voice of your pulpit has given 
no "uncertain sound." I have meant only to 
bring the whole strength of this desk and of this 
church, so far as my position and poor abilities 
would allow, to the support of the cause of our 
country and humanity. 

A call now comes to me, my friends, to make 
other proof of this my ministry among you. I 
have spoken to you heretofore by words : I am now 
called to speak to you by an act. I am bidden to 
make that full proof of the sincerity of my utter- 
ances which only deeds can give. I have held up 
before you the beauty and the sublimity of sacri- 
fice: I am now asked to bring my sacrifice to the 
altar. 

This call does not come to me unexpectedly; nor 
do I answer it hastily, or in any narrow enthusiasm 
of the moment which shuts out a view of the many 
collateral questions and consequences it involves. 
I see all, and on all sides, just, I think, as you 
see, and more than any of you can see. Long 
foreseeing the probability of the call, my mind has 
been silently, and with full deliberation, preparing 
its answer; and, so seeing and so judging, there is 
but one course that conscience opens to me. My 
friends, this call is imperative: I must obey. 

I would not make the matter too serious. There 
may be little service or sacrifice required, — per- 
haps the showing a readiness to obey will be all; 
and I am glad to see that the result of the military 



310 THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 

draft is accepted in this community with such 
cheerfulness. Still, I wish there were a deeper 
feeling of seriousness beneath this good, but almost 
too jocose, cheer. Probably there is more than 
there seems. But I wish that our obligation to our 
country was more sacredly considered and revered, 
and that the whole question was decided more in 
the light of solemn duty. I wish that those whose 
names have been drawn were asking rather if they 
cannot go than seeking reasons for staying at 
home. There ought to be such a sentiment of 
patriotism in the community that the presumption 
would be that' every drafted man would go, whereas 
the presumption now seems to be that he will stay 
at home if he can, and go only if he is obliged to. 
I should count it a much higher testimony to my 
own character and the value of my past preaching, 
if I were met with the remark, " Of course, you will 
go, if you are allowed," than to be addressed, as I 
more frequently have been, "Of course, you will 
not think of going." 

I assure you, my friends, I can think of nothing 
else. My words to you with regard to our duties 
to our country have expressed my sincere convic- 
tions. I have preached what I believed, and I still 
believe as I have preached, and what I have 
preached to others I have meant also for myself ; 
and I could never come into this pulpit and utter 
again such words as I have spoken here — for they 
would then seem to me mere empty breath — unless 
I obey, so far as I have the capacity, this call. 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 3 1 I 

I do not know as I shall be pronounced physi- 
cally worthy for the service into which the lot 
would take me, though I am aware of no defect 
that would legally exempt me, and sincerely hope 
that none may be found. I only wish this matter 
were beyond doubt. I have wanted since last 
Thursday, as never before, strength of body, and 
shall regard it with profound mortification if I 
shall be declared physically disabled for meeting 
this demand which my country makes upon me. I 
cannot at all understand the feeling which prompts 
so many men to search their bodies for some weak- 
ness or disease whereby they can escape this ser- 
vice to their country. I know very well that one 
physically incapacitated should not go as a soldier, 
and that patriotism sometimes may require that 
one abstain from going rather than to go and be- 
come a burden to the service. But how any one 
can exult if such incapacity be discovered in him- 
self is what I cannot comprehend. Aside from the 
mean and craven nature of such a sentiment, a 
proper pride in the possession of a sound body 
should keep one from grovelling so low. How 
much nobler is the spirit of the drafted sailor, who, 
already in the sea service of the government, came 
before the examining board the other day with a 
certificate from some local physician, trumped up 
for him, probably, by his home friends, stating 
that he had an internal organic disease, but who, 
when the board found no disease, but, on the 
contrary, pronounced him a sound and perfectly 



312 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



healthy man, exclaimed with exultation: "Good! 
But I shall go back to the service in which I now 
am, for I can serve better there; so here are my 
three hundred dollars, which I willingly pay for 
the sake of going back knowing that I am a sound 
man!" Young men, if your mothers should be as- 
sailed, would you exult because you were feeble- 
bodied, and could not go to their defence? Our 
country is our mother; and shall we not pray for 
strong arms, in this her hour of peril, to defend 
her? I decide not for others; but for one I do 
so pray continually, and I shall use all possible 
means, between this day and the day of examina- 
tion a month hence, to make myself physically 
worthy to answer her call. And, if accepted, I 
must go, — go wherever and in whatever capacity 
the legally constituted authorities may place me, 
seeking for myself nothing that is not equally open 
to all, only trusting that, if there be any kind of 
service in which I may be more useful than an- 
other, it will in providential ways come to me. 

And, if not accepted, if I shall be doomed to 
the mortification of physical unworthiness, I shall 
still feel that this call is a new voice of duty 
which I must in some way try to obey. In what 
shape I can respond to the demand 1 know not 
now; but I have for some time felt that I must get 
nearer to the heart of this national struggle, that I 
must enter more interiorly into the life of this 
hour of our national history, that I have done what 
I could by word, and must now make some fuller 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



313 



and more personal proof of my ministry in this 
regard. And this call from the conscription wheel 
I accept as an intimation that another field of duty 
may be somewhere opening for me. 

You say it is all accident, that the turn of a 
hair's breadth more might have drawn the next 
name instead of mine. True; and yet no accident 
happens to us which does not bring for us, if we 
listen, a divine message. And this is the message 
that this so-called accident brings to me: "Make 
full proof of thy ministry." I have spoken to you 
so much by words that I feel that my words have 
lost their power, — at least that my absence, in 
some service to which the nation calls, would now 
speak more forcibly than my presence for the 
truths which I have endeavored to uphold. 

I know what may be rising in your hearts to be 
uttered, and what many have already said to me, — 
that there is a certain fitness of abilities to be con- 
sidered, and that I can do better service here than 
in any other position, particularly in a military 
position. I accept gratefully this evidence of your 
favor and regard, and readily acknowledge that 
considerations of this kind are to receive attention. 
But we must be careful not to allow them too much 
weight. So long as the question was concerning 
the raising of a volunteer army, I have not felt 
called to any kind of military service. Neither by 
temperament, education, nor tastes, have I any spe- 
cial qualifications for it. I could consistently en- 
courage those who had the qualifications to go, 



314 THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 

while at the same time I felt that I could remain 
with greater usefulness at my present post. But 
the question is now changed. The conscription 
law has put an end, in great measure, to these 
considerations of fitness, as also to those of conven- 
ience. It is to be presumed that two years' oppor- 
tunity for volunteering has taken all those into 
military service who have any special liking or 
adaptedness for it, or who could leave home and 
business with ease. Whatever the fact may be, 
the presumption on which we must act is that it is 
now an even matter who shall go to make up this 
new army; and for this reason we have drawn lots 
to decide the question. 

I say we have drawn lots, — we, the people, have 
done it. It has not been done for us or over us by 
any despotic authority, but it is our act done at our 
demand. And this leads me to say the word which 
I wish to say on the Conscription Act. 

The conscription law is our law, the people's 
law. It was passed by the legal representatives of 
the people, and at the demand of the people. The 
people said to the government: "All have volun- 
teered who have any special fitness for war or who 
can go with convenience to themselves or to their 
families or to society. It is now as difficult for 
one man to go as another: we will draw lots to 
determine who shall go." And the government has 
accordingly put our names into the wheel, and the 
fates, at our command, are turning it : shall we not 
abide by the lot? 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



315 



If any think that I have put the point too 
strongly, that the draft is the act of the people, 
let them call to mind the fact that a little more 
than a year ago there was a general call through 
the newspapers of all parties in the loyal States, 
and through the popular voice as expressed in 
private and in public, for taxation and a draft, 
— a fact which will ever be remembered to the 
honor of republican institutions and of the Ameri- 
can people. And, if any, having in mind the 
troubles incident to the draft, now think that an- 
other army might have been raised by volunteers, 
let them remember the troubles and disgust which 
a year ago attended the volunteering system. 

But, whether an army of volunteers could have 
been raised or not, is a question that can no longer 
be discussed. We have decided for conscription, 
the people asked for it: the government through 
the people's representatives have given it, and 
given it in the form of a law of which humaneness 
is the characteristic picture. The exemptions 
which the law makes are none of them on the 
ground of class, or profession, or wealth, but all on 
the ground of humanity. I venture to say that, 
except, perhaps, in some points of practical detail 
(and these are receiving a liberal interpretation), 
a conscription law could not be framed, wiser or 
more compassionate. Imagine what hardships and 
opposition there would have been, had the law 
given no alternative but going to the field. Even 
the three hundred dollars commutation money, 



3 16 THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 

which has been the chief cause of complaint, was 
put in from regard, not to the rich, but to laboring 
men and men of moderate means, in order to keep 
the price of substitutes within the reach of most 
men of honest industry. There will doubtless be 
cases of hardship under the law, but so there have 
been under the system of volunteering: the hard- 
ships do not grow out of the fact of conscription, 
but out of the fact of war. The law could not at- 
tend to such cases; but private charity can and 
should, and doubtless will. The law, I believe, in 
its main features, is as good a one as could be 
drawn; and, had it not been for a few political 
demagogues with hearts so bad that they would ruin 
their country for the sake of party, there would 
have been no outbreak of hostility to it. 

Regarding, then, the draft as the act of the 
people drawing lots among themselves, the people 
of course will honorably abide by it. Still to 
those who are drawn a choice is left, and how shall 
this choice be made? It is not, most certainly, to 
be taken for granted that all whose names are 
drawn should enter the service. The feeble-bodied 

— wretched men they should consider themselves 

— are exempted by the law itself. Only those 
who are pronounced physically fit will have the 
question to decide what they are to do. And this 
question we cannot decide for one another. We 
may present motives that will help to a decision; 
but, in the end, each must decide for himself, — 
decide solemnly, and under a full sense of his obli- 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 3 1 7 

gation to his country and to God. Yet there is 
one question which all whose names have been 
drawn must alike ask, if they mean to abide honor- 
ably by the lot; and this question is, How — that 
is, by accepting which of the three alternatives 
presented — can I best serve my country? not, 
How can I best serve myself, my family, my busi- 
ness? but, How can I best serve my country? I 
can conceive, indeed, that there may be cases 
where men who have no special fitness for military 
service, but do have a very special usefulness in 
other work, can best serve their country, even in 
this crisis, by paying their commutation money or 
sending substitutes, and remaining themselves in 
their business to keep that in operation. So, too, 
there are doubtless strong exceptional cases of 
domestic obligation, where, fully in accordance 
with the spirit of the law, one would be released 
from the choice of personal service. Let every 
one, however, if he would keep his honor, be on 
his guard against the specious forms which this 
exceptive pleading may assume. He must decide 
unselfishly, patriotically, conscientiously, putting 
foremost, not the grounds for staying at home, but 
the grounds for going. 

It is quite commonly said, I know (and such a 
report I now see is in the newspapers), that the 
commutation fee, by which a veteran volunteer may 
be procured, is more acceptable to the government 
than a raw recruit. If the government should 
make an authoritative statement to this effect, it 



3 18 THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 

would decide the question for many of us. But no 
such statement has yet been made; and, until it is 
made on official authority, the presumption is that, 
since the law was made for raising an army, the 
men are wanted more than the money. 

Again, it is urged that one of no special fitness 
by nature or education for military duty can best 
serve the country by sending a substitute who is 
fit; and thereby he may actually show a higher 
patriotism than if he should go himself. There is 
truth in this argument as a theoretical proposition, 
and at one time I gave it great weight in my own 
case. But practically there is a very dangerous 
fallacy in it, and the fallacy lies in our not consid- 
ering sufficiently the qualities that must make fit- 
ness in the substitute; for fitness consists by no 
means solely in the possession of muscle or in bel- 
ligerent training. I might send many men in my 
stead who have stronger bodies and are better 
fighters; but no man could be my substitute who 
does not believe in the justice of our cause as thor- 
oughly as I do. No man could be my substitute 
who does not, by birth or adoption or principle, 
feel a personal interest in the triumph of our cause 
and the salvation of the country. No man could 
be my substitute who would fight merely for pay, 
or who would fight on the other side at any price. 
For one to be my substitute in this struggle he 
must have some other allegiance to our cause than 
an allegiance that is bought: he must believe in it. 
He cannot be a good and true soldier without be- 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



319 



lief. But the substitutes that are procurable and 
that are being accepted are most of a very differ- 
ent sort from this. They are Canadians, or aliens 
just from the other side of the Atlantic. They 
have no intelligent appreciation of our struggle 
or our institutions. They come only for money. 
They would serve just as readily, many of them 
more readily, on the side of the rebels; and they 
will [desert at the first opportunity, or, guarded 
against that, are, at least, very likely to prove 
faithless in battle. 

[Since the above words were spoken, we have 
had a practical proof in this city of their truth. I 
ask you, young men, and brother-conscripts, — you 
who mean to be true sons of your country and do 
your whole duty to her and answer honorably her 
call for help, — Is it such creatures as fled the other 
night from Pierian Hall that you are willing to 
send in your stead to the defence of your mother, 
the country? Can you, without a blush of honest 
shame, call such men — swindlers, perjurers, run- 
aways — your substitutes? Are you ready to have 
your patriotism measured by their character, and to 
own that men who can only be kept for the service 
by being guarded in jail can do your work in this 
holy cause? ] 

There are some reasons of feeling, which, with 
many persons, are conclusive against a substitute 
in their own case; but these, since they are reasons 
of feeling, and therefore not of general application, 
I do not here consider. But this point which I 



320 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



have considered — the danger there is of putting 
into our armies, through the practice of procuring 
substitutes, a large class of men who have no zeal 
nor faith in our cause — presents to every drafted 
man, and to the whole community, an argument 
that should receive the most weighty and serious 
attention. Besides, leaving out of view the danger 
of bad faith on the part of the substitutes that are 
generally procurable, there ought, I think, to be 
some patriotic pride in this matter. Is it possible 
that, with the large population there is in the 
loyal States of the requisite age, still untouched, 
the country cannot raise another army of its own 
citizens to go to its defence? Are we so degener- 
ate that we cannot close this war, and save our 
country and its cherished principles without calling 
in to our aid an army of foreign mercenaries? 

But let me conclude by giving briefly the three 
positive considerations which, in addition to the 
more personal reasons I have expressed, have out- 
weighed all objections in my own case, and 
brought me to the decision that I have made; and 
they are considerations which, in my opinion, 
should have general regard. First, the value of 
the moral element in an army is to be considered, 
and alongside of this the moral effect of men leav- 
ing positions of usefulness and comfort and honor 
to enter the army. If our cause is the just and 
sacred cause that most of us believe it to be, then 
no man among us is too good or stands in too high 
a position to give himself to it, or for it, in what- 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



321 



ever way the country may call for his services. 
And the better and more enlightened the men are 
who go to make up the army, the purer and higher 
becomes the cause, and the more it becomes linked 
with the truest and holiest interests of the country, 
and the more elevated and earnest becomes the pa- 
triotism of the country. Moreover, this war has 
proved, if it was not proved before, that it is not 
bad men, or rough men, or always men of the 
stoutest bodies, that make the best soldiers, but 
that character, earnestess, faith, serve in an army 
as everywhere else. Not the low population of 
our cities, brought up to fighting, but youths deli- 
cately nurtured in wealthy and refined homes, and 
polished with the culture of colleges, have done 
some of the best service as soldiers in this war. 
Other things being equal, the truer a man is in 
character, the better soldier will he make. And, 
when other things are not equal, solidity of char- 
acter and a heart in the cause will often more than 
make up for deficiency of bodily strength. 

Secondly, men who might choose the alternative 
of staying at home ought to consider their duties 
toward those who, on account of their circum- 
stances, must accept the alternative of going. 
The great complaint against the draft has been that 
the rich and cultivated — those who can easily com- 
mand three hundred dollars — would remain at 
home, while the poorer class would be obliged to 
go. Now every one, if possible, ought to act so 
that there shall be left no show of justice in this 



322 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



complaint. Every drafted man who is not kept at 
home by very important considerations, every one 
who might stay at home, but can go, ought to go 
for this reason, if no other, — the encouragement 
and support of those who must go. Let it be seen 
that this draft is a fair thing, and that we mean to 
abide by it fairly, and that it is a democratic 
thing, — the rich and the poor, the educated and 
the uneducated, the man who labors with his hands 
and the man who labors with his brains, as they 
all have an equal interest in the country's preserva- 
tion, so all standing side by side and shoulder to 
shoulder in its defence. 

Thirdly and finally, — and in some respects the 
most important consideration of all, — what is most 
needed now for putting an effectual end to this re- 
bellion, with all its causes and consequences, is a 
general uprising of the people to the support of the 
government, to the support of it against not only 
rebellion in the South, but against secret treason 
and open violence at home. Let the people of all 
classes not merely show submission, but respond 
with cheerful alacrity to this draft, each one going 
to his place in the army as to a post of solemn 
duty, and not only would the war soon come to an 
end, but the stability of republican institutions 
would be insured forever. The spectacle of a great 
people, including all classes, thus rising cheerfully 
and harmoniously together to meet the demands of 
a draft, saying to one another, "Our sons and 
brothers who could volunteer in this holy cause 



THE VOICE OF THE DRAFT 



323 



have gone, and we have now cast lots to see who 
shall go to stand by their sides or to defend their 
graves; and we, to whom the lots have fallen, now 
come ready in hand and heart for the service to 
which our country calls us," — such a spectacle 
would be a grander exhibition than was that first 
uprising of the people at the outset of the war; 
and an army so formed would be nobler in its in- 
vincible determination than even an army of volun- 
teers. God grant that I may be one in such an 
army! God grant, and the patriotic hearts of this 
community grant, that there may be many to stand 
with me! Could such an army spring up, I doubt 
if it would even have to march out of the loyal 
States, for it would be recognized as the army of 
the invincible fates, as the hosts of Heaven's re- 
tributive justice; and rebellion, violence, treason, 
oppression, lawless rage, and every foul wrong of 
war that now devastates our land, would shrink 
from before it into the darkness of annihilation, 
and law, liberty, and peace would be established in 
triumph and forever over a reunited country. 



1 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN THE 
CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



" For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the 
death of the testator; for a testament is of force after men are 
dead." — Heb. ix. 16, 17. 

It is sweet to linger in the fragrance of a good 
man's memory. The part that Abraham Lincoln 
has acted in our history can never become old or 
worn. It is a career upon which historians will 
ever love to dwell, and which will never lose its 
charm for the people. And, after all that has been 
spoken and written concerning him, there is yet 
one phase of his wonderful life and tragic destiny 
which has great attractiveness, and which I have 
hinted at once or twice in previous discourses, but 
which, so far as I have seen, has not anywhere 
been fully developed or much noticed. Mr. Sum- 
ner, in his eulogy just spoken, touches more 
closely upon what I refer to than any other writer 
or speaker whose words have come to my eye; but 
the object he had proposed to himself did not allow 
him to more than skirt the border of this phase of 
the great theme. 

The point of view that I have in mind is the 
perfect dramatic unity and progress of Abraham 
Lincoln's life, — the wonderful line of destiny, or 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 325 



of providence, by which his career, from his birth 
to his death, was unfolded, in all its parts and 
acts and through all its shiftings of place and 
scene and time, on the thread of a single vital 
truth and to a single moral end. This life moves 
across the stage of history with the dramatic march 
of one of Homer's heroes. The stern demands of 
ancient Grecian tragedy were not more observed by 
its great artists in their greatest works than they 
have been observed in the actual life of this Amer- 
ican President. Here must be no side issues, no 
confounding of moral lessons, no division and dis- 
traction of one prevailing moral purpose and force, 
no departure, amid whatever private or professional 
or domestic episodes or whatever change and va- 
riety of action, from the one truth which this indi- 
vidual career from its outset was chosen to embody 
and to teach for humanity. From its entrance on 
the stage of earthly being to its exit, this life must 
be moved by one inexorable purpose and will, and 
march to one inevitable fate, in order to print 
upon the heart of the world one of the grandest 
truths of human civilization and government and 
progress. 

This is our theme. But why bring it here, and 
make it a subject of religious meditation? It may 
belong to the dramatist and the poet, it may serve 
the uses of the lecture-room and the magazine, but 
why bring it to the church? Because, first, there 
is a providence behind the scenes, the hidden infi- 
nite manager of the great drama. The ancients 



326 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



called it fate, destiny: we call it Providence, God, 
the Infinite Spirit. Abraham Lincoln, though self- 
possessed to an extraordinary degree, though having 
great independence and originality of being and na- 
tive resources and capacities very largely at his 
command, was yet impelled, as few men have been, 
by a power beyond his own, possessed, used, chosen 
for a special work by a spirit above himself. And, 
secondly, I bring the theme here because of the 
grand moral importance to humanity of the truth 
which his life was selected thus dramatically to 
unfold and teach. 

And what is this truth? It is the truth of 
republican freedom, simplicity, and equality, — in 
one word, the truth of democracy, as theoretically 
stated by Jefferson in the opening sentences of the 
Declaration of Independence. By the strict line 
of this truth, the life of Abraham Lincoln, act by 
act and scene by scene, was developed, from the 
day his eyes first saw the light in a log cabin on 
the Western frontier of civilization to the day 
when, as President of the United States, standing 
at the very topmost height of official position and 
honor, he was slain by the hand of an assassin, and 
those eyes closed forever to mortal things. To 
this truth he was born ; to it he was apprenticed 
by the necessary conditions of his lot, during all 
the years of his boyhood and youth. At manhood 
it became his property purchased by conviction; 
it stamped henceforward his whole character, and 
all his personal, social, and professional habits. 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 327 

When he was called into political life, this was at 
once his creed and the central principle of all his 
measures and acts; and, when this truth was chal- 
lenged and defied by rebellion to the government 
founded upon it, then he, seemingly by accident, 
yet inevitably, became the leader of the loyal hosts 
in the fierce struggle with despotism and slavery, 
led them to triumph, and, in the hour of triumph, 
fell, — fell that he might have the greater triumph, 
as the Greek tragedians made their heroes fall in 
order that they might ascend to Olympus and to 
the society of the gods, fell that he might seal his 
testament to this truth of republican freedom, 
simplicity, and equality, with his blood, and sanc- 
tify it henceforth as the solemnly established pol- 
ity of the nation. Is not here a life-drama such as 
is seldom enacted on this earth? 

But let us bring out some of its features in 
fuller relief. Let us see how, in every part of 
its course, this career is vitalized, and its direc- 
tion and progress determined by the truth I have 
stated, — see how close the hidden, inimitable Art- 
ist ever holds it to the one purposed aim, how 
statelily and solemnly it advances, by steps that 
seem almost to know whither they tend, to the 
inevitable tragic end. 

The drama opens in the rudest and humblest 
condition of democratic life, the farthest possible 
removed from wealth and culture, and from any in- 
fluences that may have been transmitted across the 
seas from the forms and refinements of monarchical 



328 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



civilization. Not amid the schools and cities and 
growing luxuries of the East, but in the far West, 
where nothing is yet established but the pure 
democratic idea, must the hero be born who is to 
testify for that idea through life and by death. 
He must be born of nothing but pure democracy. 
The world must see that this future republican 
ruler owed nothing by birth save to republican 
freedom, simplicity, and equality. Therefore he 
is born in a hut without floor, with but one room, 
with no articles of luxury, with very few even of 
comfort or necessity, born to toil and poverty, born 
of parents having no lineage, no learning, no 
library, having nothing but a little spot of soil and 
a rough shelter over their heads and honest hearts 
and hard-working hands. Yet, according to the 
theory of the country written in the Declaration of 
Independence, and partially established by the 
Revolution, those parents are a part of the sover- 
eignty of the land; and from their loins must be 
born the strong man who is to be leader and ruler 
of the nation through the severest contest that 
democracy has ever known, and who is to testify to 
all history and throughout all time for the truth of 
the democratic idea. 

But the contest against democracy has already 
begun. There is an institution in the land that 
flagrantly denies its most fundamental principles, 
— an institution of caste, inequality, oppression, 
and despotism. This institution has spread out to 
the frontier settlements. It is closing around that 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 329 

democratic hut, menacing its prosperity, its virtue, 
and the precious promise it holds. Slavery joins 
issue with the democratic idea in Kentucky, and 
threatens utterly to overwhelm it. But the times 
are not yet ripe for the great struggle: the hero is 
still a boy; the strength and integrity that his 
honest parentage and home have given him must 
be saved from contamination. The drama is just 
beginning. Not prematurely must the crisis be 
developed. The parents, indeed, do not thus rea- 
son with conscious reference to the future; but the 
genius of the republic is jealously guarding its 
hero. The prophetic Spirit of Truth, sitting calm 
behind the scenes, will not permit the whole fut- 
ure to be changed and robbed at this dangerous 
point. The little spot of land, which slavery was 
already beginning to envelop and impoverish, is 
sold, the rude home is abandoned ; the parents 
escape from the snares and dangers of slaveholding 
Kentucky, and seek across the Ohio, still farther 
in the wilderness, a new home, but on free soil. 

And now still further is our hero trained for the 
stern tasks of democratic sovereignty before him. 
It seems as if he must understand every atom of 
that sovereignty by going through the condition of 
every individual constituent of it, before he can be 
ready to assume it in his own person for the great 
ends designed. Hence he must exhaust every 
democratic occupation from the most menial to the 
most honored. He is a pioneer, and day after day, 
with sturdy blows, cuts a way through the forest to 



330 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



his home and to the land that is to feed him. He 
is a farmer, and by the sweat of his brow gathers 
his daily bread from the soil. He is a mechanic, 
and helps build the family house and its furniture. 
He is a famous rail-splitter, and fences the farm 
with his own hands. He is a flatboatman down 
the Mississippi. He is a clerk in a store. He is 
a militia captain, and has a little touch of war in 
the Indian troubles of the frontier. He sets up 
in business by himself as a country trader ; he is 
postmaster, land surveyor, and finally lawyer and 
legislator. 

And all this time, too, he is gathering knowl- 
edge, — not in schools and colleges and lyceums 
and public libraries, but out among the Western 
forests and prairies, gleaning from nature, from 
life, and from the few books to be found among his 
scattered neighbors or bought with hard-earned 
savings, laboring over his books in solitude by his 
democratic fireside, with his solitary democratic 
brain, — gathering knowledge, not to veneer over 
weakness and poverty of capacity, not enough even 
to cover and conceal the rugged fibre and homely 
solidity of the native stuff from which his being is 
made. All his knowledge is perfectly assimilated 
and used by his nature; for this man, born out of 
the loins of pure democracy, and destined to be the 
leader of American democracy in a deadly contest 
for national existence and to die its martyr, must 
be purely American and democratic through every 
nerve and fibre and pulse of his being. 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 33 1 



But again the scene changes. The great strug- 
gle between democracy and despotism is approach- 
ing. The hosts are preparing on either side for 
the combat, and the destined leader of freedom 
must come forth into the public arena. Already 
in Congress he had voted steadily for freedom and 
equality in the national Territories, and even at 
that early day had tried to make the national capi- 
tal free soil. But now the contest had thickened, 
and the smell of blood was already in the land. 
The virgin soil of Kansas was the prize. Should 
it be polluted and ruined by the demon of slavery, 
or given in pure wedlock to freedom? The plot 
against democracy begins to unfold its horrors : the 
"coming man" must now come. Unavoidably he 
is drawn from his retirement into the political 
field; and, although several years have yet to pass 
before he is hailed as leader, his powerful sword 
can never be sheathed again. 

In the contest concerning Kansas, and in the 
famous Senatorial campaign with Stephen A. 
Douglas, which grew out of the Kansas conflict, it 
is remarkable how sharply the lines were drawn 
between freedom and slavery, how the debates con- 
stantly turned on this one point, and how radical 
and thorough Mr. Lincoln's utterances always were 
as the chosen champion of liberty. It is to be 
noticed, too, how he uniformly planted himself on 
the broad ground of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, — that is, of free and equal government for 
all classes and races; and he attacked slavery, be- 



332 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



cause slavery attacked this invincibly true and 
fundamental principle of the republic. 

And at this point in the development of this dra- 
matic history we come to a very important and 
rarely noticed fact, — the key of the wonderful 
drama. Abraham Lincoln was the first politician 
or statesman who publicly proclaimed the doctrine 
of the " irrepressible conflict " of ideas between the 
South and the North. This he did on the 17th 
of June, — the anniversary of the battle of Bunker 
Hill, — 1858, in a speech to the State Convention 
of Illinois, which nominated him for Senator 
against Douglas. That speech opened almost with 
the words now become so famous and familiar: "A 
house divided against itself cannot stand. I be- 
lieve this government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to 
fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other." 
And this was the beginning of that noted Senato- 
rial campaign which was but preliminary to the 
Presidential campaign. It was the striking of the 
key-note of this great American contest : it was 
the clarion voice of the true, destined leader, sum- 
moning the hosts of freedom to his standard. For, 
mark you again, this was the first political utter- 
ance of the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict 
between freedom and slavery, declaring that one of 
the antagonists, even in the domain of the States, 
must yield before the other. The moral reform- 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



333 



ers — the abolitionists — had declared it; but no 
statesman or leading politician proclaimed it before 
Abraham Lincoln. It was he that first took up 
and ingrafted upon the politics of the country the 
moral ideas of the abolition reformers. He made 
this remarkable speech several months before Mr. 
Seward took the same idea, clothed it in philo- 
sophic shape, and christened it by the name of 
"irrepressible conflict." 

Can we longer wonder that Abraham Lincoln 
should be the chosen leader of the hosts of democ- 
racy and freedom, when this conflict comes to 
arms? that he, the first statesman who announced 
the divine necessity of the moral conflict, should 
be summoned to represent divine justice in the 
martial struggle, and to give thereto the costly 
testimony of his life? Not otherwise could the 
drama preserve its unity. Blind fate, destiny, 
could have made no other choice. Shall Provi- 
dence be less wise than destiny? Shall the pro- 
phetic, preparing, managing Spirit be balked of its 
purpose? Shall a mighty' national contest, involv- 
ing national existence and the virtue and happi- 
ness of millions of human beings, be subject to 
accident? its sublime end postponed or thwarted 
by some political marplot? No! Providence is as 
grandly steady as destiny or fate; and not more 
inevitably, in the old Greek tragedy, did the fate- 
impelled hero, at the proper moment, come upon 
the stage than did Abraham Lincoln, in the dra- 
matic ripeness of events, assume the political 



334 THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 

leadership of this nation. Consciously or uncon- 
sciously, when the clash of arms had come, the 
hosts of loyalty and liberty could only rally around 
the man whose voice had first uttered the true 
battle-cry. And therefore it was that, when that 
moment came, we found Abraham Lincoln, the 
leader that democratic freedom had been preparing 
in the West, in the President's chair at Washing- 
ton, and Commander-in-chief of the army and navy 
of the United States. 

And now events hasten more rapidly to the 
grand denouement. Yet, like Hamlet, the hero 
hesitates. He dreads the awful conflict. He 
shrinks, as it were, from the very greatness of the 
task imposed upon him. Already, too, villany 
lurks in his path, assassination is dogging his 
steps ; and he walks henceforth as if burdened with 
a mysterious, foreboding consciousness of his des- 
tiny. In his kindly, democratic nature there 
should be, and is, no taste for civil war and blood. 
He tries to conciliate, — puts forth his arm to 
avert the rushing fates: he holds the chalice of 
the Constitution to the white, maddened lips of 
the foe. But all in vain. With boastful, furious 
words, the cup is dashed to the ground : " We have 
a new Constitution, founded on the divine right of 
slavery: we fight for it, and take and give no 
quarter!" And so freedom's leader is held to his 
divinely purposed work, — defied by despotism, 
until forced in self-defence into the impregnable 
citadel of equal justice. 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



335 



Yet the steps were all taken, not in passion, not 
in routed haste, but deliberately and with dignity, 
some of us thought too slowly and hesitatingly 
taken, and feared lest freedom would be betrayed. 
But the great Dramatist knew better than we, — 
knew the metal of the man, and knew he would 
not, could not, yield the principle to which his life 
had been, as it were by solemn vow, devoted. 

Months before, in his contest with Douglas, 
with inspired earnestness and in the old Roman 
spirit of absolute self-consecration to the highest 
welfare of the republic, he had exclaimed: — 

"Think nothing of me: take no thought for the 
political fate of any man whatsoever, but come 
back to the truths that are in the Declaration of 
Independence. You may do anything with me you 
choose, if you will but heed these sacred princi- 
ples. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, 
but you may take me and put me to death. ... I 
charge you to drop every paltry, insignificant 
thought for any man's success. It is nothing. I 
am nothing. Judge Douglas is nothing. But do 
not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, — 
the Declaration of Independence." 

And, again, on his way to Washington, in the 
old Independence Hall in Philadelphia, after in- 
quiring what great sentiment it was in the Declara- 
tion there adopted which held the colonies so 
firmly together in the revolutionary struggle, he 
answered, "It was that sentiment which gave lib- 
erty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I 



336 THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 

hope, to the world, for all future time: it was that 
which gave promise that in due time the weight' 
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men"; 
and then he added, "If this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that principle, I was about 
to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot 
than surrender it ! " and closed the remarkable 
speech with the solemn words, "I have said noth- 
ing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be 
the pleasure of Almighty God, die by." It was 
not in the nature of the man who had given himself 
to the whole truth of republican government with 
such vows as these, and whom the angel of the re- 
public was guarding for her highest service and 
greatest glory, to betray the sacred office for which 
he had thus received Heaven's commission. He 
was cautious. He saw every difficulty in the way; 
for a time it seemed as if he reasoned with destiny, 
but he could not betray the cause so solemnly com- 
mitted to his hands. 

He was mortal, indeed; and, with all the care in 
preparing him for his high office, it was impossible 
that he should escape entirely all infection of the 
evil from which the whole nation suffered. He 
still had some respect for the local laws of slavery. 
And so the conflict must go on in him, as in the 
nation, until he should be purified by the fires of 
battle from all taint of the evil, and be lifted clear 
above all its entanglements, ready to strike the 
fatal blow with full moral strength. Observe, too, 
that, consistently with his past record and training, 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^37 



he came to the contest, not as an abolitionist 
per se, but on the broad ground of democracy. He 
was an emancipationist because a true democrat. 
He believed in freedom and equality for all, and 
therefore for the black man. He came to the con- 
flict not avowedly to destroy slavery, but to save 
democratic government; and he destroyed slavery 
because incompatible with the continued existence 
of democratic government. The one is the broader 
position, and necessarily includes the other. De- 
mocracy necessitates abolitionism. This is the 
truth he is to proclaim to the world, and lead on to 
victory. 

And now see the solemn steps of the grand 
march. We shall notice that there is no retro- 
grade movement, — that there is really no delay, 
that every step comes in its place with the sublime 
constancy of fate, but also with the paternal, 
humane promise of a tender Providence, and that 
every step lifts the nation upward upon higher and 
broader ground, and nearer to the glory of its final 
triumph. Even in the first Inaugural Address, 
though conciliatory and seeking in some respects 
by compromise to avert the conflict, the key-note 
of democratic faith and assurance is sounded. 
"Why," said the President, "should there not be 
a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the 
people? Is there any better or equal hope in the 
world? In our present differences is either party 
without faith of being in the right? If the Al- 
mighty Ruler of events, with his eternal truth and 



338 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours 
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely 
prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of 
the American people." We passed these words by 
at the time with little notice; but, now that the 
drama is complete, they sound like the solemn 
utterances of the chorus in ancient tragedy, pro- 
nouncing upon the gathering combatants the 
warning and the judgment of the gods. It was the 
presiding, oracular genius of the republic that 
uttered them, giving judgment in advance. 

Again, in the first message to Congress, dated 
July 4, 1 86 1, though slavery is not directly at- 
tacked, there are brave sentences that strike at its 
root, and that must one day strike the fetters from 
all men's limbs. "This is essentially a people's 
contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle 
for maintaining in the world that form and sub- 
stance of government whose leading object is to 
elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial 
weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of 
laudable pursuits for all, to afford all an unfettered 
start and a fair chance in the race of life." None 
but the Western pioneer, cradled in poverty, and, 
by his own sturdy hands and the "fair chance" 
that democratic institutions put into them, hewing 
his way into public position by a purely democratic 
path, could have uttered these words from the 
Presidential chair. Already we see in them the 
promise of a united and emancipated country. 
These are the same syllables that, by a little 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 339 

change of articulation, are to pronounce Richmond 
fallen, and the slave of South Carolina free. 

In the message of December, 1861, there is an 
elaborate discussion, on principles of political 
economy, of the question of capital and labor, in 
which the pure democratic ground is taken that 
labor is superior to capital, and must be free and 
own capital, and not capital, labor. The discus- 
sion seemed to us abstract and ill-adapted to the 
pressing emergency of the hour; but we see now 
how fittingly it takes its place in the great struggle 
to complete the loyal argument. It is the bud of 
emancipation in the loyal border States. It is an 
appeal to prudent, thinking men, on grounds of 
industrial prosperity and self-interest. It brings 
the re-enforcement of material and social well- 
being to the cause of divine justice. Hear, too, 
how at the close, the grand choral strain comes in 
again, giving utterance to the sublimer principles 
that underlie the irrepressible conflict, and sum- 
moning the contestants again to the bar of future 
judgment. 

"This [the free system of labor] is the just and 
generous and prosperous system, which opens the 
way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent en- 
ergy and progress and improvement of condition to 
all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted 
than those who toil up from poverty, none less in- 
clined to take or touch aught which they have not 
honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering 
a political power which they already possess, and 



340 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close 
the door of advancement against such as they, and 
to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till 
all of liberty shall be lost. . . . The struggle of 
to-day is not altogether for to-day : it is for a vast 
future also." 

Closely following, — only three months later, — a 
special message is sent to Congress, recommending 
the passage of a resolution by which the federal 
government shall be authorized to co-operate by 
pecuniary aid with any State that will enact grad- 
ual abolition of slavery. Two months afterward, 
in a public proclamation, attention is called to this 
resolution, which was adopted by Congress; and 
the States most interested are earnestly appealed 
to, to avail themselves quickly of its privilege. 
Says the President : — 

"You cannot, if you would, be blind to the 
signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and en- 
larged consideration of them, ranging, if it may 
be, far above partisan and personal politics. This 
proposal makes common cause for a common object, 
casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the 
Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come 
gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or 
wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? 
So much good has not been done by one effort 
in all past time as in the providence of God it 
is now your high privilege to do. May the vast 
future not have to lament that you have neg- 
lected it! " 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



341 



And so the chorus echoes back with added in- 
tensity the divine plea of impartial justice that was, 
the sublime burden of the previous message. 

In the regular message of December, 1862, the 
same subject is taken up again, and discussed more 
elaborately and with greater scope. It is now pro- 
posed that Congress shall not wait for the States to 
accept, at their option, its offer of pecuniary aid 
toward emancipation, but shall initiate emancipa- 
tion. An amendment to the Constitution is rec- 
ommended, by which slavery shall be gradually, 
yet entirely, abolished in all the States and 
throughout the country. But the great import of 
the paper was not so much what it recommended, 
for its plan of emancipation was too heavily condi- 
tioned to be practically available, as the fact that 
the abolition of slavery was for the first time 
boldly and seriously discussed and made the most 
important topic in a regular Presidential message. 
More memorable still is the message for its closing 
words, in which the chorus of the drama again 
speaks, inspired by the genius of republican free- 
dom, who thus urges her champions up to the true 
battle-ground, and holds the now fast developing 
action close to its divine intent. Hear the deep, 
stately, measured tones as they seem to come from 
the distant heavens : — 

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to 
the stormy present. The occasion is piled high 
with difficulty, and we must rise with the occa- 
sion . . . We must disenthrall ourselves, and then 



342 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



we shall save our country. . . . No personal signifi- 
cance or insignificance can spare one or another of 
us. The fiery trial through which we pass will 
light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest 
generation. . . . We — even we here — hold the 
power and bear the responsibility. In giving 
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the 
free, honorable alike in what we give and what we 
preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the 
last, best hope of earth. Other means may suc- 
ceed. This could not, cannot fail. The way is 
plain, peaceful, generous, just, — a way which, if 
followed, the world will forever applaud and God 
must forever bless." 

But this paper coupled with its plan of grad- 
ual abolition the principles of compensation and 
voluntary colonization. Its proposed method of 
action was not so lofty as the spirit that inspired 
it. The noble goal aimed at condemned the halt- 
ing effort. It was not for any such imperfect 
result that this mighty contest was proving the 
metal of the nation. The human instrument was 
not so far-sighted as the Providence which wrought 
through him, — the actor not so wise as the 
manager behind the scenes. Yet he is faithful 
and true, and submits himself with unwavering 
loyalty to the teaching of events and of God ; and 
with ever-lengthening and bolder paces he goes 
forward. One after another all imposed conditions 
of emancipation drop away. Compensation, grad- 
ualism, colonization, vanish and become obsolete 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 343 

ideas; and the champion stands, clean from all 
alloy of the evil he is to annihilate, alone with God 
and justice. 

In August, 1 86 1, he had modified General Fre- 
mont's proclamation of emancipation in Missouri 
to conciliate Kentucky. In May, 1862, he had 
countermanded General Hunter's decree of aboli- 
tion in the Department of the South only because he 
reserved the great right for himself and would not 
allow it to be frittered away powerlessly, and with 
little moral effect, by subordinates. It is evident 
in the very order of countermand that he begins to 
see clearly what the line of duty and destiny must 
be. He appeals to the insurgent States, in the 
words already quoted, to smooth the way to peace- 
ful emancipation by voluntarily acceding to the 
logic of events and to the plain intent of divine 
Providence. Even as late as the 13th of September 
he had received a religious deputation from the city 
of Chicago, appointed to urge him to declare eman- 
cipation by military proclamation, and replied to 
their arguments with such a strong array of objec- 
tions to the measure that the deputation had 
departed in great doubt as to his adopting it. But 
it is as clear as noonday now that the President 
had been debating the measure in his own mind for 
months, and marshalling the arguments for and 
against it, and that in this interview he summed up 
the difficulties in the way, as they had presented 
themselves to him, in order to draw forth, if possi- 
ble, from the deputation new light upon the ques- 



344 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



tion. He also significantly added at the close of 
the conference: "I can assure you the subject is 
on my mind by day and night more than any 
other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will I 
will do." And now God's will is rapidly revealed 
to him, not through miraculous interposition, — 
for, as he says, "these are not the days of mir- 
acles," — but through an earnest desire to "ascer- 
tain what is possible and learn what appears to be 
wise and right." Events are his instructors. The 
spirit of Almighty Justice, unfolding its high pur- 
pose more and more in the daily history of the 
struggle, is his teacher. He consults his cabinet 
for suggestion, not for advice. Upon him Heaven 
has put the responsibilty, and he will decide and 
bear the weight of the decision alone. And the 
decision being made, the duty clear, on the 226. of 
September he issues the preliminary declaration, 
and gives the final warning to the rebellious States; 
and on the 1st of January, 1863, appears the great 
Proclamation of immediate emancipation. 

The critical blow has now been struck. The deed 
is done for which all before has been only prep- 
aration; and all that comes after — emancipation 
in the border States, the enlistment of negroes in 
the army, the Freedmen's Bureau, the anti-slavery 
amendment to the Constitution — is only the gath- 
ering up of the fruits of that victory and making 
it secure forever. The issuing of the Proclamation 
was the crisis in the drama; and so, when that 
blow was given, the embattled hosts rushed to the 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 345 



conflict with a more furious and deadlier onset. It 
was now life or death to the foe and slavery, life 
or death to the nation and freedom. But through 
all the deathly contests on the martial field and 
through all the struggles on the equally dangerous 
field of politics, threatened by foes and importuned 
by friends, the President never recedes from that 
decree. "The promise," he says, "being made, 
must be kept." "While I remain in my present 
position, I shall not attempt to retract or modify 
the Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return 
to slavery any person who is free by the terms of 
that Proclamation or by any of the acts of Con- 
gress." And again, "If the people," he says, "by 
whatever mode or means, should make it an ex- 
ecutive duty " to reverse the action of that 
Proclamation, "another, and not I, must be their 
instrument to perform it." Here speaks the stern 
stuff from which strong men are made and martyrs 
come. But the people will stand by the Proclama- 
tion, nor will they choose any other hand than his 
that had written it to execute it. Not to another 
can the true champion's glory be given before the 
field is wholly won. 

And now, with clearer vision and more entire 
surrender to the divine purpose of events, he con- 
secrates himself to the remaining tasks before him. 
Henceforth union and freedom are synonymous. 
Two conditions are necessary to peace, — the aboli- 
tion of all acts of secession, the acceptance of 
emancipation. But hear again the lofty strains of 



346 THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 

the chorus, pronouncing judgment on the new 
aspect of affairs : — 

"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I 
hope it will come soon and come to stay, and so 
come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. 
It will then have been proved that among freemen 
there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to 
the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are 
sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And 
there will be some black men who can remember 
that, with silent tongue and clinched teeth and 
steady eye and well-poised bayonet, they have 
helped mankind on to this great consummation; 
while I fear there will be some white ones unable 
to forget that, with malignant heart and deceitful 
speech, they have striven to hinder it. Still, let 
us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. 
Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the 
means, never doubting that a just God, in his own 
good time, will give us the rightful result." 

And so, with ever broader comprehension of the 
divine meaning of the contest and deeper convic- 
tion of the divine hand controlling it, the President 
renews his vows, and leads on the loyal hosts of 
freedom to new achievements. Under God, and 
the providential choice of the nation, he is the in- 
strument for establishing the government on the 
true democratic basis of liberty, justice, and equal- 
ity, and so for fulfilling, at last, the prophecy of 
the Declaration of Independence to all the people 
of the land. 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 347 

At Gettysburg, standing among the graves of the 
heroes who on that glorious field had given their 
bodies to death, but who, with their blood, had 
written their names in the book of immortal life, 
he opens his address with these memorable sen- 
tences : " Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposi- 
tion that all men are created equal. Now we are 
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedi- 
cated, can long endure." And then he solemnly 
consecrates himself and the nation to finish the 
work which the heroes there buried had so nobly 
died for, in order "that this nation, under God, 
shall have a new birth of freedom, and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." 

What a perfect recognition of the eternal princi- 
ples involved in the conflict, and of the Providence 
watching over and directing with far-reaching 
vision the struggle, does this reverent dedication 
disclose! Henceforth the nation's President is 
God's servant, and the war is a religious war, — a 
religious war more really than if it were to set up 
some idol of theology, or to enthrone some ecclesi- 
astic power, or to rescue the tomb of Jesus from 
the hand of unbelieving Saracens; for it is a war 
to disenthrall and redeem humanity, to rescue a 
whole continent from being the grave of liberty to 
become its throne, to lift from the shoulders of a 



34-8 THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 

whole people, through the expiatory suffering of 
just retribution, the monstrous burden of a gigan- 
tic iniquity, and to bring, through the reconcil- 
iation of obedience to divine law, the grandest 
opportunity for national and individual develop- 
ment that was ever offered to the human race: it is 
a war, conducted by unseen powers in the heavens, 
for the divine right of mankind, without reference 
to race or class or color, to self-government and 
self-development. And the President acknowl- 
edges himself but a willing instrument in the 
hands of the mighty celestial forces directing the 
combat. Hear how the lips of the loyal leader 
give utterance to the sentiment of this advanced 
position: "Now, at the end of three years' strug- 
gle, the nation's condition is not what either party, 
or any man, devised or expected. God alone can 
claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If 
God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and 
wills also that we of the North, as well as you of 
the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in 
that wrong, impartial history will find therein new 
causes to attest and revere the justice and goodness 
of God." 

From this high position it is but a step to the 
final consummation of the moral progress of the 
drama. After a political struggle, filled with crit- 
ical and perilous incidents and the most solemnly 
momentous of any that has occurred in our history, 
the people rechoose for their leader the man who 
now confesses himself to be not only the servant 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 349 

of the people, but the servant of God; and they 
choose him with the express purpose that he may 
finish the work for republican freedom which the 
retributive justice of Almighty God has given to 
his hands. And now the recognition of this truth 
of the expiatory nature of the war, and the divine 
instrumentality of his office, culminates in the 
majestic, almost awful solemnity of the second 
Inaugural Address, which rises clear above all 
earthly taint and human infirmity and reservation, 
to the prophetic and divine standpoint. The polit- 
ical orator is clothed with the mantle of the in- 
spired prophet. The wise statesman utters his 
counsels as from the tribunal of heaven. The 
leader of the nation becomes the oracle of divine 
laws and judgments. From the mouth of what 
other human magistrate in all history shall we find 
such utterances as these? 

"The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe 
came into the world because of offences, for it 
must needs be that offences come; but woe to 
that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we 
shall suppose that American slavery is one of these 
offences which in the providence of God must 
needs come, but which, having continued through 
his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and 
that he gives to both North and South this terrible 
war as the woe due to those by whom the offence 
came, shall we discern that there is any departure 
from those divine attributes which the believers in 
a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do 



3 SO THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 

we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every 
drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by 
another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said that 
the 'judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether.' With malice toward none, with char- 
ity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives 
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and 
for his widow and his orphans, — to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations." 

In these words the highest possible utterance of 
the struggle is reached, the moral triumph of the 
drama is here achieved, the eternal majesty of the 
divine laws is acknowledged and vindicated; and 
the hero stands perfectly submissive to the divine 
Purpose, docile to the slightest behest of Almighty 
Power, and his eye anointed with heavenly wis- 
dom. These sentences read like a solemn choral 
response to the half-illuminated, oracularly uttered 
judgment of the first Inaugural: it is the genius 
of the republic, gathering up, as in the ancient 
chorus, the whole meaning and purpose of the 
drama, and echoing back, through all the vast, 
intervening events of the action, the august an- 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 35 1 



noimcement that the mystery is unravelled, the 
struggle ended, the judgment finished and unalter- 
ably given. Battles, victories, capitulations, the 
surrender of armies and towns, the submission of 
the whole rebellion to the cause that is thus de- 
cided for by the celestial umpires, follow in rapid 
and natural course. 

But is the hero to have no more visible triumph 
than this? Yes: he enters the fallen capital of 
rebellion and slavery. His entrance into Rich- 
mond, with no imperial pomp, with no military 
escort even, attended only by a few sailors from 
the navy, — emblem of republican Executive sim- 
plicity; walking up the long, desolate streets of 
the captured city, in plain citizen's dress, holding 
his little boy by the hand, — emblem of republi- 
can domestic simplicity; followed by a growing 
throng, as the news ran from street to street, of 
men, women, and children, from whose limbs his 
hands had broken the shackles of slavery, their 
skin black, but hearts white with joyous gratitude, 
as they crowded round to hail their deliverer, bar- 
ing their heads in reverence before him, and he, 
with instinctive courtesy, standing with uncovered 
head in response, — emblem of democratic liberty 
and equality, — this journey is his triumphal pro- 
cession, this throng of emancipated slaves his im- 
perial escort, the benedictions of these new-made 
freemen are his crown, the crown of democratic 
sovereignty. 

There is now but one remaining glory that can 



352 



THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN 



be accorded. The strict laws of tragedy require 
that the hero shall die for the truth he has lived 
for, shall fall in the hour of triumph. And so the 
President must fall. Does Providence therefore 
direct the assassin's blow? By no means: only as 
the Providential laws surround, limit, and pene- 
trate every contest between good and evil. But 
the deadly blow is aimed by the hand of the foe. 
It is the last, desperate, maddened effort of the 
struggling combatant. It is the crowning wicked- 
ness of the rebellion and slavery. The evil prin- 
ciple of the drama must culminate, as well as the 
good: it must develop all its inherent and hidden 
horrors of evil. It must leave no seed of crime 
that belongs to itself unfruitful ; it must leave not 
the smallest vestige of honor attached to its name. 
And so, filled with revenge, mad with defeat, in- 
spired with demoniac frenzy, it puts forth all the 
remaining energy of its mortal strength to slay the 
man whom it recognizes as the incarnation of all 
the principles that have contended against it, and 
the leader of the hosts that have defeated it in 
battle. It slays him, and thereby, according to 
the moral intent of the drama, brands itself with 
everlasting infamy, while it lifts him to an im- 
mortal glory, and saves forever the truth to which 
his life was devoted. The assassin's crime is the 
rebellion's infamy, and his and freedom's apothe- 
osis. The President falls. But over his grave the 
nation has a new birth, a resurrection. He seals 
his testament with his blood, and sanctifies repub- 



THE CAREER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 353 

lican truth forever. The President falls. But 
over his grave his spirit rises into the renowned 
halls of the celestial heroes, welcomed amid the 
triumphant songs of a nation redeemed, a people 
emancipated, a country saved. 

With the hero's triumphant departure from earth 
the drama is ended; but the Spirit of the drama 
lingers, and utters an epilogue for the awestruck, 
listening spectators, and this is the epilogue it 
speaks : — 

The President falls, "for, where a testament is, 
there must also of necessity be the death of the 
testator." The President falls. But his testament 
remains with us, "for a testament is of force after 
men are dead." The testament remains. The na- 
tion, humanity, the world, are its legatees; but 
we, the people of this generation, are its executors, 
and we have given sacred bonds, written and at- 
tested on many a battlefield with our kindred's 
blood, that we will administer it, — administer it 
with exact and impartial justice to all classes and 
castes and races among us, — in order "that gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM. 



There are certain familiar phrases on the lips 
and in the press to-day, such as "the higher edu- 
cation," "the higher criticism," "the higher cult- 
ure." The meaning of these phrases may not be 
clearly grasped by all who hear or see them, nor 
even, possibly, by all who use them. Yet they all 
denote, in some way, a higher or more comprehen- 
sive standard of judgment, with regard to the 
subject-matter considered, than was in vogue even 
less than a half-century ago. "The higher educa- 
tion " means not merely an advanced course of in- 
struction beyond the traditional "three R's " of 
the old-time common school, but it means an 
advancement of the whole realm of learning. It 
means that there is a higher school than the high 
school, and that the college course of studies has 
been widened immeasurably from the routine of a 
generation or two back, and that, even in the com- 
mon school, glimpses are given of this larger realm 
of knowledge. It means, too, quite as much, a 
different educational method in every grade and 
kind of education, that education is no longer the 
mere hammering of facts into the brain, but the 
training of the brain into the perceptions and use 
of facts. So "the higher criticism" means the 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



355 



application of a new and more scientific method of 
research to the subject-matters of learning, and 
particularly to the study of the Bible and the gen- 
eral phenomena of religion. 

But the phrases themselves, even more than their 
meaning, have suggested my topic this morning, 
in connection with the annual recurrence of our 
national birthday. The age which is talking so 
much of the higher education, the higher criticism, 
the higher culture, the higher civilization, should 
certainly recognize the need of a higher patriotism. 
And we of this country, at the present hour, are, 
in my opinion, in a condition of urgent need of a 
higher standard of patriotic sentiment than that 
which apparently animates the active majority of 
our country's population. If the country is to do 
its part worthily in behalf of these great interests 
of education, culture, civilization, and religion, if 
it is even to hold worthily the traditions of the 
past in these respects, it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that the standard of patriotism among us 
should be lifted to a higher level, that the senti- 
ment of patriotism — that is, our love for and our 
pride in our country — should be infused with a 
loftier and purer principle. These great interests, 
it is true, are not bounded by national frontiers. 
Humanity overleaps the distinctions of country and 
race. Religion is as wide as the world. Learn- 
ing and civilization are not provincialized to any 
one land. The philanthropist may truthfully say, 
"My country is the world; my countrymen are 



356 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



mankind." Yet we cannot live in all countries at 
once. Our work must be done in some special 
part of the world, in connection with some special 
country and people. And the more and better 
work we do for the elevation of our own country 
and people, the more effectively will our power be 
manifest in promoting the interests of mankind the 
world over. The working end of our lever for lift- 
ing the human race forward is in our own land. 

These statements, again, presuppose that our 
regard and service for our own country are based 
on ethical principles. The kind of patriotism 
whose motto is, "Our country, right or wrong," or 
even, "Our country, however bounded," is not to 
be commended. National selfishness is just as im- 
moral as individual selfishness. The self-aggran- 
dizement of one nation at the cost of another nation, 
especially if the latter be a weak nation at the 
mercy of a strong neighbor, is just as much a viola- 
tion of the principles of honor and justice as would 
be a similar course of conduct by one man toward 
another. The building up of one country by de- 
frauding another is just as much theft as it is when 
one individual land-owner adds to his estate by 
some fraudulent depredation on his neighbor's 
property rights. "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou 
shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor's," 
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," are command- 
ments which apply to nations as well as to individ- 
uals. Yet, on account of the difficulty of fixing 
the weight of moral responsibility so that it may 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



357 



be felt, where for the acts of nations there are so 
many who may properly share it, there is a too 
general acquiescence in the idea, though few would 
openly defend it, that there is a lower moral code 
for the conduct of nations than for individuals. 
Then, too, on account of sentimental associations 
which people have with the land of their birth and 
their homes, of their fathers and their kindred, a 
glamour is apt to creep over the conscience when 
it is a question of moral judgment concerning 
one's own country's deeds. It is a feeling akin to 
that which leads one to look blindly, if not forgiv- 
ingly, toward the faults of one's own family. But, 
however excusable or even commendable such ten- 
derness may be toward moral infirmity in the fam- 
ily circle, it is not a mood of mind that is morally 
wholesome for a citizen to entertain toward his 
country. The relation is, in fact, so different that 
no moral parallelism exists between the two cases. 
In the family the upright and the infirm are equally 
members of one body, and the relation is between 
one individual and another. But the citizen is a 
part of his country. The citizen is not one indi- 
vidual and his country another, but the citizens 
together are the country. Its acts are their acts. 
Its morality is their morality. Its infirmities are 
their infirmities. Hence, when the citizens are 
induced to look tenderly and forgivingly toward 
their country's faults, they are really excusing and 
petting their own faults; and this is a national 
mood of mind that is anything but wholesome and 



358 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



reformatory. We want no patriotism in this age 
which asserts that one's own country can do no 
wrong, more than we want the antiquated doctrine 
that "the king can do no wrong." One assertion 
is as false as the other. The higher patriotism 
must be interfused, through and through, with the 
ethical sentiment. It cannot be merely the love 
and defence of one's country because it chances to 
be one's birthplace and home and to hold the 
graves of one's forefathers, but it should be an 
aspiration and purpose to make a country which 
shall be morally worthy of the love and defence of 
noble-minded citizens. Not what our country is, 
but what it can and ought to be, is the central 
pivot of the higher patriotism. 

As to our own country, there is so much in its 
history and in the basic principles of its govern- 
ment that is worthy of the utmost moral admira- 
tion that the danger is that any one generation is 
tempted to trust too much to that roll of honor and 
to boast of it as a shield against any arraignment 
of present delinquencies. And then, too, ours is 
a country so magnificent in its extent and re- 
sources, its growth and prosperity have been so 
unexampled, its natural scenery is so diversified in 
beauty and grandeur, and its people, rapidly multi- 
plying by migrations from all parts of the earth, 
have shown, on the whole, in the little more than 
a century since they became an independent nation, 
such a marvel of success in the art of self-govern- 
ment, that our patriotic sentiment is quick to go 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



359 



out to all these outward marks of national greatness 
and wealth, and to overlook some of the weightier 
matters which make a nation morally great and 
powerful, wherein our record would not be so much 
to our credit. It is a pity that on the anniversary 
celebrations of our national birth so little is done 
to stimulate the higher phases of patriotism; that, 
with all the noisy fuss and furor, the parade and 
show and cost, there is rarely anything done to 
recall and heighten the moral significance of the 
birth of this people among the nations of the earth, 
nor to educate and strengthen the sense of moral 
obligation, on the part of the present responsible 
actors of the nation, worthily to develop a country 
whose moral greatness shall correspond with the 
proportions of its material prosperity and power. 
On the contrary, oftener than not, the methods of 
celebration have so little of appropriateness and 
dignity, and are accompanied with so much of 
positive annoyance and discomfort, that a large 
number of citizens are put into anything but 
a mood of congratulation over their country's 
birthday. 

The need of a patriotism of a higher moral qual- 
ity has been especially intensified by certain feat- 
ures in the recent history of our country. It is not 
pleasant nor usual to speak of national faults on 
the Fourth of July. Yet, I can but think it would 
be a good thing for this nation to-morrow, in the 
midst of its patriotic celebrations, to have some of 
its moral shortcomings and perils so presented to 



360 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



its conscience that that organ would be pricked 
into a wholesome conviction of sin. It certainly 
cannot be good nor safe to allow the political con- 
science of the people to be lulled to sleep under 
any such doctrine as that which has been promul- 
gated by a person in high political position and 
authority, that the Ten Commandments and the 
Golden Rule have no place in politics. That, too 
generally, they do not find place in practical poli- 
tics is cause, not for declaration of the fact as a 
political principle (Heaven forbid!), but cause and' 
urgent call for political reform. It is one of the 
wise features of the system of government in the 
United States, and a feature whose wisdom has 
been so corroborated by time that its consistent 
and thorough application is only made the more 
apparent, that state and Church shall be separated. 
But woe to the country if it shall ever accept the 
teaching that politics and morals shall be sepa- 
rated, or that practical politics shall be separated 
from even the high ethical sanctions of religion ! 
Where, pray, do we want our religion and ethics? 
What are they for but to guide us in the practical 
iuties of life? And what duties are more immedi- 
ately practical than our political duties? 

It may, I believe, be truthfully said that there is 
no political duty of any sort which does not involve 
some moral question. Duty itself is the primary 
word of morals. Even the political issues that 
to-day, and in the just entered great national cam- 
paign, are most conspicuously to agitate and divide 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



36l 



public opinion in this country — that is, the tariff 
question and the silver, or money, question — in- 
volve at bottom ethical problems. The ethical 
bearing of such complicated political problems as 
these is not always visible to the disputants; yet, 
through free discussion and gradual enlightenment, 
these questions will ultimately work themselves 
down to their moral bases, and will never be per- 
manently settled till settled according to the re- 
quirements of impartial justice between citizen 
and citizen, and between the whole body of citi- 
zens and the world. Politics means the science of 
government. And there is nothing which a politi- 
cal government has to do, even if it be but the 
building of a road or the chartering of a bridge, 
which does not at some point touch the question of 
right between man and man. 

But, while on many matters that are at issue in 
politics equally good men may differ as to where 
the right lies, and a period of educating discussion 
is necessary for making clear the moral bearings, 
there are other matters on which momentous polit- 
ical issues and elections are made frequently to 
depend, — practices in vogue, motives appealed 
to, passions aroused, concerning which the moral 
aspect is already so evident that it would seem as 
if there could be no division among men of toler- 
ably upright consciences as to their condemnation. 
And there would be no division on such matters, 
were it not for the hallucination that, at the man- 
date of party and in the alleged interest of par- 



362 THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 

tisan success, the moral law may be somehow 
temporarily abrogated for the individual con- 
science. Take, for instance, that class of poli- 
ticians, of whatever party, who may be said to 
define politics, not as the science of government, 
but as the science of getting government office for 
themselves and friends, — the men who are in poli- 
tics for what they can make out of the business. 
Tammany Hall, in New York, is the most con- 
spicuous representative of this class of politicians 
in this country. But every State, and every city 
of any considerable size, has the same species of 
political aspirants with more or less of political 
power, though they may be kept under measurable 
control by the force of public opinion in many 
places. And everywhere we should say that all 
right-minded men would combine to condemn and 
put down such self-seeking aspirants, many of 
whom are not merely seekers for political favor, 
but miscreants bent on plunder of the people's 
property. But too often in such cases party attrac- 
tion is stronger than the moral law; and we find 
even the otherwise good and right-minded men, in- 
stead of combining against this party of political 
plunderers, dividing their own forces and then 
each division rivalling the other in making bar- 
gains with the plunderers and the spoilsmen. It 
is commonly believed that Tammany Hall decided 
our last Presidential election ; and it is now proph- 
esied that, though it has not succeeded in nom- 
inating the Presidential candidate of its choice, 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



363 



it will yet decide the election this year between 
the two great parties. It should be cause for the 
utmost humiliation and shame that a society so 
thoroughly disreputable and immoral, so in league 
with metropolitan vice and crime, should be such a 
power in politics as to tempt either of the great 
parties of the country to make bargains with it. 
But more cause for humiliation is it that any of the 
managers of the great parties of the country should 
be ready to accept the tempter's price. The Tam- 
many element, unfortunately, is in the parties 
themselves. Wherever found, it is after the spoils 
of office and the scalps of its enemies. It is an 
element that goes into politics with no moral prin- 
ciple whatever. It is always for self. It corrupts 
whatever it touches. And yet good men, enlight- 
ened men, divide on minor issues of political 
policy and succumb to its power. 

Akin to the Tammany evil, and springing from 
the same root, is the increasing use of money as a 
power in political elections. Of course there is a 
legitimate use for money in political campaigns. 
Literature is to be printed and circulated, public 
meetings are to be held, the people are to be 
roused from apathy to action by intelligent and 
spirited discussion. But such needs for money as 
these would demand but a small portion of the vast 
sums of money that are raised and spent for cam- 
paign purposes. In many places it has become a 
rule to assess candidates for office at a fixed sum, 
according to the amount in salary and perquisites 



3^4 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



the office is considered worth. In New York even 
candidates for judgeships are thus assessed by po- 
litical bosses to the figure of thousands of dollars; 
and some of the most eminent and worthy of the 
judges of that State have had to submit to this 
mulct, if they would reach the places for which 
they may have a proper ambition and for which 
their fellow-citizens deem them specially qualified. 
In this case the vicious custom which has assumed 
the force of law should certainly be forbidden by 
law. Of all official personages, a judge should be 
clear of even the suspicion of contributing money 
for his own election. And, generally, it would be 
more becoming, even if statute law cannot accom- 
plish it, that the unwritten law of public opinion 
should prevent a candidate for any office paying 
money for a campaign in which his own election to 
office is in question. But now the expectation is 
just the reverse. A candidate for public office is 
not only looked to for such courtesies as dinners 
and railroad tickets to delegates on convention 
days, — all of which courtesies are of the nature of 
small bribes, — but he is expected to pay largely 
into the campaign fund, if he has the means to do 
it, and is quite likely to be chosen as a candidate 
because he has the means and the disposition to use 
them freely in behalf of his political ambition. 
And so we have, at election times, our political 
journals full of suggestions, which should make 
our cheeks tingle with shame, that the candidates 
with the largest "barrels" — as the political slang 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



365 



is — are winning the political race; and intima- 
tions are thick that rich men buy their way even 
into such high offices of dignity and power as that 
of a United States Senator or a Cabinet position. 
That campaign funds are used, in one way and an- 
other, for the bribing of voters, for the actual pur- 
chase of voters at so many dollars a head, has 
become an open secret: it is practised in cities 
and in country towns, and even our new ballot laws 
have not yet stopped this profanation of the free- 
man's duty of voting. To this shameful degrada- 
tion has fallen the sacred right of self-government 
by the ballot which our fathers fought to establish. 
Oh, for the higher patriotism before whose indig- 
nant scorn both the briber and the bribed should 
be driven, at least, into outward respect for the 
Declaration of Independence and the decencies of 
free citizenship ! 

Then, again, the extravagant pension legislation 
of the country has opened another most fertile 
source of corruption. It is a kind of corruption 
that is infinitely subtle, working like a deadly 
disease at the very roots of patriotism. The 
United States Senate has just passed the "Annual 
Pension Appropriation Bill," aggregating nearly 
$145,000,000. The Commissioner of Pensions, 
however, estimates that this immense sum will 
fall short of the requirements, which he puts at 
$156,000,000; and in the course of the discussion 
it was stated that, even with no additional legisla- 
tion increasing the list of pensioners or their pen- 



366 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



sions, the present laws would bring the necessary 
appropriation up to nearly $200,000,000 in the 
course of two or three years. When General 
Grant was President, he thought that a sum less 
than $30,000,000 annually should suffice to meet 
all just pension claims, even when they should 
reach the highest point. And up to 1879 hi s 
estimate was, on an average, correct. In that year 
Congress passed the "Arrears of Pensions Bill," 
which at once nearly doubled the annual amount 
required. And, what is worse, it disclosed to the 
ex-soldiers of the country the fatal facility of Con- 
gress for passing such bills. The legislation had 
not been called for by those whom it would benefit. 
The soldiers had, up to that time, been self- 
respecting. There was no argument of any weight 
to show their needs. It was simply a demagogue's 
measure to catch their votes. And from that time 
to this, as still more liberal legislation has been 
proposed and adopted, there has been no party in 
Congress that has dared to oppose it. A new busi- 
ness for pension claim agents and pension lawyers 
and lobbyists sprang up, the soldiers themselves 
were plied with circulars reminding them of the 
government's bounty, and setting them to work to 
look up their diseases and disabilities and establish 
their claims. The result was that thousands and 
scores of thousands of soldiers went on to the pen- 
sion rolls because of some wound or contingent 
disability, though abundantly able to take care of 
themselves and their families, or possessing an 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 367 

ample fortune; and a multitude of others are there 
who may be disabled, but whose disability is in no 
wise the result of their wounds or exposures in the 
country's service. Moreover, nearly thirty per 
cent, of this enormous annual appropriation does 
not reach the soldiers at all. It goes to pension 
agents and to the expenditures of the Pension 
Bureau. Now, I am well aware that to raise any 
criticism of this enormous pension system of our 
country is to subject one to the charge of being 
disloyal to what was our Union soldiers' cause. 
Do you ungratefully forget the debt, it is asked, 
which the country owes its soldiers? To which I 
reply, No: I can never forget it, nor is it a debt 
which the nation can ever pay. It is a kind of 
debt which cannot be measured nor paid in dollars 
and cents. If the old soldiers were disabled by the 
war, and they or those dependent on them are in 
need, then let the help be prompt and generous. 
The nation should see to it that none such should 
suffer. But to provide that a soldier not of this 
class should be aided by the bounty of the public 
treasury is to transform die proud and honorable 
tie of patriotism into a mercenary relation. As to 
loyalty to the cause for which our soldiers fought, 
I claim that it was not the thought of pay, but the 
spirit of patriotism which was the impelling motive 
which led to enlistments in the army. It was 
enough if our State or the nation promised to care 
for those dependent on us, should the fortunes of 
war deprive them of our support. That was the 



363 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



only contract which the nation undertook, — that 
and the support of the army in the field. The rest 
of the compensation was to be found in the prizes 
of valor and self-sacrifice and in the honor of doing 
honorable service for the salvation of one's country 
when in peril and for human liberty. It was my 
privilege to be one of those who did some slight 
part in that great service. But, though I had been 
wounded and maimed in the conflict, so long as 
with brain or hand I can earn my bread, I trust I 
should have the grace to say to my country, " Keep 
your pensions for those who are disabled and in 
want : leave to me the sole but ample satisfaction 
of having served my country as I would have served 
my own mother in peril, from filial love and duty." 
The true loyalty can ask no other reward than that. 
Apply not your silver knife to cut the nerve of the 
higher patriotism, which places honor above silver 
or gold or comfort or life. 

There are other evils of recent growth in this 
country which are a great strain on the patriotism 
of good citizens. But I can only briefly allude to 
them. There is the growing misgovernment of 
great cities, due largely to political entanglement 
with the vicious power of the liquor saloon. 
There is the utter failure of free government in 
some of our cities, owing to this and other causes, 
and a condition of practical anarchy, — as when, in 
New Orleans, if the courts fail to do justice, a 
mob of citizens breaks into a jail and deliberately 
murders a dozen imprisoned and defenceless men; 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



369 



and this great nation of sixty-five millions of 
people is powerless by law and in fact to prevent 
the massacre or to bring the murderers to trial. 
There, again, are the outrages committed against 
the liberties and rights of the colored people in 
some parts of the country; and, again, though po- 
litical platform and pulpit may utter their indig- 
nant protests, this great government looks on 
helplessly. You may attempt a journey in a 
palace car across the continent, or you may send a 
train with treasure across; but you do it with the 
liability that your train or car will be held up by 
banditti, and the treasure stolen and the passengers 
robbed. Or look at our latest anti-Chinese bill, — 
a piece of legislation which is both a perfidy and 
an atrocity, a violation of our own solemn treaties 
and an institution of legal measures against unof- 
fending Chinamen, now for years resident in this 
country, which revives the spirit and some of the 
features of the fugitive slave law. Let there be 
needed restriction on immigration, applicable alike 
to all nationalities; but let, at least, the legisla- 
tion be equitable and the laws humane. And the 
humiliating feature about it is that this legislation 
was adopted against the sober conscience of the 
country, and at the behest of party expediency. It 
was one of the things which neither party in Con- 
gress dared to oppose nor the President to veto, for 
fear of losing the support of the Pacific States in 
the coming campaign. 

Noting all these things, are we, it may be well 



37o 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



asked, a nation of civilized men, or are we still in a 
semi-barbarous condition? And yet, remembering 
all these things, where, on the whole, shall we find 
a better country? where one with vaster possibili- 
ties for good and a more promising future? Tak- 
ing things even at their worst among us, what is 
the duty, what the lesson, of our national birthday? 
Not to flee the country, not to fold our hands and 
leave it to be preyed on by the harpies of ruin. 
Here, rather, is our opportunity to show our pa- 
triotism, — the opportunity for that higher patriot- 
ism which would go to the rescue of a country in 
peril and save it, an opportunity for making a 
country which shall be worth living for and worth 
dying for. Our fathers were not dismayed when 
first, on these rugged New England shores, they 
had to fight for their very existence, as well as 
for their religious liberty, against climate, against 
the wilderness, against savage man and savage 
beast, against famine and disease. They did not 
succumb: they conquered. Our fathers of the 
Revolutionary epoch did not yield to the dis- 
couragements of their era. They did not sink in 
despair at the thought of their untrained militia 
meeting in armed conflict the veteran soldiers of 
Great Britain, of their poverty contending against 
England's wealth, of traitors at home ready to 
attack them in the rear. They had faith in the 
strength of their cause, in the strength of their 
hearts, in the strength of their right arms; and 
they conquered. And, when that more recent trial 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



371 



hour came, — the slaveholders' rebellion, — the 
country did not falter. At first, indeed, there was 
the discouraged cry, " Let the wayward sisters 
go ! " But, when the flag was struck, the coun- 
try's heart felt the blow, and was smitten with a 
righteous indignation. The country rose to the 
level of the need. Men, means, statesmanship, 
military leadership, all came amply adequate to 
the emergency; and the country was saved, — the 
whole country, — and rededicated entire to liberty. 
With such memories in our national history we 
ought to be shamed out of all half-faith in our re- 
publican institutions, out of all half-heartedness 
and cowardly discouragement in face of the evils 
that now seem to endanger them. 

Yet we are not to close our eyes to these evils. 
We are not to trust in any principle of "manifest 
destiny " to save us from them. No doctrine of 
the old-fashioned optimistic fatalism, that, because 
we are the freest nation and have the best form of 
government on earth, therefore no evil can befall 
us, is going to meet present emergencies. We 
must meet them just as the country has always met 
the evils that have beset it hitherto, — by resolute 
vigilance and courage, by thoughtfulness, by boldly 
facing the evils and overcoming them, not neces- 
sarily by military power, but by steady application 
of the best intellect and conscience of the country 
to the devising of political, legal, and moral 
remedies. Most solemn duties rest upon the 
people of these States, — duties to be performed 



372 



THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 



under a sense of religious obligation, duties to our 
country and duties to mankind, whose welfare is 
so closely involved in the success and prosperity 
of our free institutions, duties to liberty, to jus- 
tice, to human rights. We justly honor those who 
have died for their country. But it is a harder 
and therefore a nobler task to live for one's 
country. 



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